


At the Labyrinth Gates

by Lizardbeth



Series: Not All That We Are [2]
Category: Battlestar Galactica: 2003
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cylons, Drama, F/M, Novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/pseuds/Lizardbeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the Cylon Occupation of New Caprica begins, Sam finds that avoiding his visions of the future draws the horror ever closer, while Kara has trouble with the present.</p><p>Second in the 'Not All That We Are' series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning**: Contains some adult content, including torture and sexual situations. It's not the same Cylon Occupation, but it's still the Occupation.
> 
> This is a direct sequel to **_Not All That We Are_**. You should read that first.
> 
> First online in Dec 08. This series was begun and planned before S.4 - While I have incorporated some of the things we learned, the backstory and history are AU to canon.

No. This couldn't be happening.

Kara stared at the fading colors of the explosion where Sam's Viper had been. "SAM!" she yelled into the comm. "Oracle, respond!" Still nothing. "Sam, you frakker, answer me!"

He had punched out. He had said he was punching out. He had to be out there somewhere. He had to.

As she listened, holding her breath and straining to hear the slightest whisper over the comm, she worried that she wouldn't hear anything over the thudding of her heart in her ears. But there was no answer.

Her hand tightened on the stick, ready to flip the ship and go back to look for him.

As if he knew her thoughts, Helo's voice came over the wireless, making her jump. "_Starbuck, Galactica. We read no comm signal from Oracle." _He paused for a moment and then his voice tightened up, "_You are cleared for combat landing. Hurry back to the barn."_

She couldn't acknowledge for a moment, her brain refusing to parse what that meant. Her eyes dropped to DRADIS, but there was nothing on it except a hundred Raiders gaining on her tail.

Get back. All she had to do was get back to the ship.

Her hands directed her Viper seemingly without her mind's involvement, guiding her ship to the landing bay. She didn't have to worry about any other ships coming in hot behind her, and she let hers slam to a stop in the middle of the bay.

The Viper was still shuddering when she heard Helo's all-hands over the wireless to prepare for jump.

The universe held its breath for an instant, and _Galactica_ was away.

Her hands balled into fists so tight the seams of the gloves cut into her skin.

* * *

It was the quickest trip she'd ever made to CIC.

"Admiral, I need a Raptor. I can jump back -- I know the exact coordinates where Sam punched out, and I can --" she started but Adama interrupted her.

"Starbuck." That was all he had to say. A small shake of his head let her know it was denied.

She bit her lip hard, and then blurted, "We can't leave him behind!"

"We left a lot of people behind," Adama said heavily. "At least Anders knew why."

Helo stepped to her side, took a deep breath, and explained, "We lost his signal when his position was swarmed by Raiders. Even assuming he punched out, there's nothing to go back for." His voice was gentle, his eyes even more so as he delivered the news that punched her in the gut.

She stared up at him and shook her head once, feeling hollow and desperate. "No. That can't be. He said -- " her voice threatened to crack and she shut up. She was not going to break down in the middle of CIC. If she bit her lip hard enough she could concentrate on that little pain and ignore the tightness in her chest. But still her voice couldn't get above a whisper. "He said it wasn't the end."

Helo's large hand squeezed her shoulder and that was nearly enough. She jerked away, staring at the situation board and taking deliberate breaths until the burning in her eyes subsided.

_Galactica. Pegasus._ A handful of civilian ships. That was all.

"Helo, take nav. Plot another jump," the Admiral ordered.

"Course?" Helo asked, moving up to the nav station.

Adama joined Kara, looking up at the board. "Anywhere. Just away. But we'll be back."

"We will?" Kara asked.

"When we're ready, we're coming back to get our people," he promised her.

She nodded, and didn't speak the thought that sprang to her mind:

It was already too late for at least one of them.

* * *

Sam gave the Raider one last pat on the wing. He tried to feel amused by the irony of walking anywhere with his arms across the shoulders of two Cylons, but the shooting pains from his ankles and lower leg made walking difficult and he was glad for the help. The Six under his left arm, who was wearing a blue, short-sleeved blouse, and the Two - Leoben - were both tall and strong enough he could lean on them. Another Six with a short black jacket over a tank top and an Eight who wasn't Sharon followed.

As they walked, he shivered with the realization of just how accurate his vision had been of the baseship. The lighting was stark with white and red predominant, the walls plain and metallic, and the air was humid but cool. He searched the faces of those he saw, but he couldn't know which of them, if any, he'd seen dead and dying in the vision.

They passed a few Centurions standing quiet sentinel, who didn't move anything except their eyes. His heart didn't jump at the human-form Cylons, but each bullethead made him want to reach for a gun.

The corridors all looked the same, and he knew he'd never find the way back to the docking bay without help.

But eventually they passed through a wide doorway and into what had to be the Cylon infirmary. There was some unfamiliar equipment, and two examination beds. He held onto one, and unzipped his flight suit, shrugging it off his shoulders.

"Here, let me help," blue-shirt Six offered and pulled the suit down his legs. With a gentle push, she urged him to sit on the bed so she could strip the whole thing. When she straightened, suit in hand, she ran a hand across the fabric and folded it carefully onto the other bed as if it was something precious.

Sam lifted his feet to look at his legs and frowned - even inside the plain grey socks, his ankles seemed to be swelling already and throbbed with a low-level but constant ache. With a bit of a sigh, he let them dangle again and sat there in his underwear, feeling self-conscious and apprehensive. Coming here might have been a bad idea. Not that dying out in space had been a good idea, either…

The Cylons gathered close like curious cats, with no sense of his personal space at all. When he felt a hand on his back he half-expected it, so he didn't flinch. He turned his head to see the Eight, who gave him a shy smile as she took her hand away. "You feel warm," she murmured.

A Four entered and looked a bit nonplussed when he saw his patient. "What's he doing here?"

"He had to eject from his Viper," blue-shirt Six answered, "and a Raider rescued him."

Four stared at Sam and lifted his brows. "Rescued him?" he repeated incredulously.

"Like the dolfinas on Picon," Sam explained helpfully and smiled when all the Cylons gave him a look, as if they were surprised he could talk. "I threw myself at the Raider, caught on and it towed me here. But I think I landed too hard, because it hurts like hell to walk."

Four ignored him. "You want me to help fix this _Colonial officer_?" he emphasized incredulously, as if they'd somehow missed that Sam was one of the enemy.

The Eight answered eagerly, "This is Sam Anders, the one Caprica and Sharon have talked about. The one who helped them see that the attack on the Colonies was a mistake."

Sam opened his mouth to correct her but then shut it again, knowing he had to be careful. The Eight was talking about when he'd been trapped in the garage with the Cylon women. He hadn't made them see the attacks had been a mistake; they'd come up with that on their own.

But he wasn't going to argue, since that influence was probably the only thing keeping him alive at the moment. He shrugged. "All I said was I was tired of killing and I wanted a better way."

On his right, Leoben glanced at him, frowning. "You convinced them you meant it."

"I did," he answered and corrected hastily, "I do. Don't you?"

"Yes," Six answered. "We do. When our ships picked up the radiological sign, we thought your fleet was in danger. And now we see so many humans living in terrible conditions on that barely habitable planet. We want to help you."

Her face was earnest, and he saw the same good intentions on the other Six and the Eight, who nodded. Leoben was merely watching him curiously. The Four was glowering at him as if a particularly large roach had crawled into the middle of the floor. So Sam turned back to the more friendly Sixes and Eight again.

He'd been afraid of something terrible happening on New Caprica for so long - to have it completely upended like this was hard to grasp. The Cylons had come in peace. No, it was better than peace: they had come to _**help**_.

"That's… amazing," he said. "Really. That you would even _**think**_ about helping. I can… hardly believe such a change."

"It was Caprica and Sharon," the other Six added. "They showed us how the attacks were a sin against God. And we…" she looked at the other models and they all nodded, including Four, "we agreed. Even the others realized we were right."

"Does that change what you said when you came aboard?" Leoben asked. "You said that you saw destruction and death in our path."

"I -- " he began haltingly, struck by the question, and he had to admit, "I don't know. Knowing you're here to help… it should change things, right?" he asked, confused. "I felt it so strongly -- New Caprica was going to be a disaster. I couldn't even step on the surface without feeling sick. I warned friends against settling there, because I knew they'd die. I had a vision --" he blinked, seeing again that flash from his chamalla-induced hallucination, and murmured, "they were buried in a pit. So many dead…"

"We're not going to do that." He felt a hand on his knee and opened his eyes again to see the blue-shirt-wearing Six leaning close. "We're here to help," she repeated again, in soft promise.

He thought about New Caprica. He hoped he wouldn't _**know**_ anything anymore, and yet that same anxiety clutched him and the echo of _**wrong, wrong**_pressed on him.

His eyes met hers and he shook his head. "I still feel this sense of dread when I think of New Caprica. I know it sounds strange and Gods know I wouldn't believe me, if I were you, but -- we shouldn't be here. None of us, Cylons **or** Humans."

The Cylons all exchanged looks. "We'll have to speak to the others," the Eight said finally. "Caprica and Sharon should hear about this."

"The Humans are still here," Four pointed out. "Obviously they didn't listen to one of their own. Why should we?"

Leoben shot him an irritated glance. "Because he's a messenger. We should listen to messengers from God, even if the humans are too foolish."

Six intervened, when the Four looked annoyed. "We don't have a consensus yet. In the meantime, you should take a look and see if he's injured. We already decided we're here to help the humans, so we should start with the one on our ship."

Giving in with a breath, Four turned to Sam and gestured. "Lay back."

Sam stretched out on the bed and watched as a machine of some kind lowered from the ceiling - it had red hanging tubes above it that reminded him queasily of veins. The Cylons stepped away at a gesture - there was a high-pitched hum and popping noise, and then Four answered, "Done. The result will take a moment."

He sat up and noticed other Cylons lingering near the doorway also watching: two more Eights and what he first thought was a Three, but turned out to be a Six with light brown hair. Word had started to spread about the strange visitor.

The results were what Sam expected - thin impact fractures in his ankles and one in his right shin. Only his flight suit boots had saved him from worse. Four wrapped his lower legs and ankles with long stretch bandages and then handed him two recognizable yellow pills grudgingly, "Here. We carry some human medicines for those who aren't injured badly enough to download. We do not have the facilities to do more."

Sam bit his tongue on a sarcastic observation that the Cylons could make breeding farms and not know how to put his foot in a splint. But it wasn't smart to go around provoking people he was trapped on a ship with. He said only, "Thank you." Sam swallowed the pills dry and hoped they went to work quickly. The bandaging had made him hurt worse and he wanted to kick himself for not remembering elementary physics like mass and acceleration.

Then he looked at the Cylons. "What now?"

It was apparent that none of them knew either.

So then he glanced down at his bare legs, back at the nearest Six, and smiled ruefully. "Do you have pants I could borrow?"

She smiled back, amused, and at that moment, it seemed as though this adventure might end up all right.

* * *

Sharon escaped from _Colonial One_ as quickly as she could, disquieted by the humans' surrender. She hadn't wanted them to surrender, preferring a partnership and building of trust, but the others believed a show of force would help the humans understand they had no choice. Maybe that was true, but now there were two battlestars somewhere out there and she doubted Adama would keep them away forever. Hopefully when he came back, he'd see that the Cylons wanted only to help.

Moving past the perimeter of Centurions into the Cylon landing site, she was met by two other Eights. She'd gotten over flinching whenever she saw another copy of herself - but it still bothered her when they spoke in tandem like these two were doing. "Sharon, we need you on the baseship. One of the Raiders took Sam Anders prisoner. You knew him before…"

The other one continued, "… so you can decide what we do with him. The Eight on the ship seems persuaded by what he says, but we don't know …"

"… It seems very strange."

Sharon listened to this with a feeling of inevitability. Sam Anders, the C-Bucs player and resistance fighter, was a prisoner of the Cylons. Again. It had taken a little while to convince the others to withdraw from the Colonies, and she had hoped every day when Centurions went out to capture or kill the resistance, that he wouldn't be killed. More for Kara's sake really, but that didn't change the fact that she wanted him to live.

She hadn't wanted to mention his name in the debate, but Caprica had told the others that if even the leader of the resistance was tired of killing and wanted a different way to live, then surely the Cylons could do no less.

Now he was back in Cylon hands, and she wondered with a very uneasy feeling in her gut, exactly what the others might decide to do to him. She'd saved him once, - and she was certainly going to try again - but it wasn't her decision this time. Even speaking for the Eights might not be enough if the other models disagreed.

She was preparing to lift-off in the Heavy Raider when the ramp abruptly lowered again. A Six entered, and Sharon smiled. "You heard the news?" she asked as Caprica took a seat beside her.

Caprica didn't smile back. "I did."

"Looks like we might have to save him again. If," she glanced at Caprica, and felt uncertain suddenly, "that's what you're planning to do."

Caprica looked startled by her doubt, which made Sharon feel better. "Of course."

"I wasn't sure, now that you've found Baltar again..." Sharon trailed off into awkwardness.

But Caprica smiled, her eyes light with love. "Gaius. It's a miracle he's here. He's alive."

"I'm happy for you." And she was - even if she was envious, too. She wondered about Galen, where he was, if he was out in the tent city, but then she pushed it away, not wanting to fall into girlish fantasies. He wasn't going to welcome her return with a smile as Baltar had. No one would. She reminded herself that was why they were there; the humans had to learn there was nothing to fear anymore.

Caprica continued, sounding more practical, "But he can wait. We came here to bring them the word of God, and Anders is a part of it."

Sharon dampened her lips with her tongue. "The Threes aren't --"

Caprica interrupted sharply, "Even they agree with the plan."

"They're going along with the plan," Sharon corrected. "They don't **agree**. And all the Threes know you killed one of them for **him.**" She didn't have to add that the Threes were still pissed about that. Sharon thought it was appalling D'Anna hated being killed for a human, more than the 'death' itself. "Did God put him in our hands again to give her a second chance?"

Caprica's gaze flickered toward the screen, watching the curve of the planet falling away beneath them, and she shook her head once, murmuring, "Remember when D'Anna dropped the gun to taunt him? He didn't pick it up - she did. She failed the test. And now he's here again, unarmed… " Her hand reached across the space between them and seized Sharon's arm in a tight, earnest grip. "Don't you see? God is testing us -- testing our will and the strength of our ideals. God wants to see which of us will pick up another gun and who will stop it again."

Nodding her agreement, Sharon nonetheless felt a prickle of unease. Not because she thought Caprica was wrong, but because she felt Caprica was right, and a part of her didn't want to believe. She professed her belief in the Cylon God, because the other Eights did and she was supposed to, but she still thought about the Lords of Kobol first.

Slowly but surely though, belief was creeping in, and she wished it didn't feel quite so much like losing herself.

* * *

Leoben had one of Sam's arms across his shoulder, while the blue-shirt Six kept Sam's other arm. Sam dubbed her mentally as Thea, after a girl from high school who'd helped him from the gym in the same way, that time Jonny Latrean had gone for a lay-up and landed on Sam's leg. He suspected trying to individualize them was a futile proposition, but he had to call her something, if only for himself, since she seemed to want to hang around.

The other Six who'd met the Raider, the one in the black jacket - now mentally Drea, Thea's sister - was on Thea's other side, and spoke softly, "Sister, to bring him to consensus…"

Leoben heard too, and interrupted, "If we decide his fate, he should be present."

Thea corrected, "He should _**speak**_, and tell them what he knows."

Drea shook her head. "The other models won't approve of a human intruding."

"They need to listen to him," Thea declared stubbornly.

The darker-haired Six drew nearer, addressing Thea. "You're so taken with this human?" Sam couldn't tell if she hated the idea or was intrigued by it.

"You didn't see," Thea told her. "The Raider brought him here. Saved him, so he could bring his message to us. How could we ignore it?"

The darker blonde Six glanced at Sam. "You know what the Ones will say," she warned.

"They're wrong," Leoben said. "They have always been wrong."

The Sixes glared at him for interrupting their conversation, but no one disputed what he had to say.

"Caprica is here," Drea said. "She has experience with him from before."

Sam listened to the Cylons, trying to get a feeling for what was going on. The painkillers hadn't kicked in yet, which made it hard to concentrate, but he knew he had to. If he wanted to survive this, he was going to have to learn the rules of this new game. There was no injured reserve when his life was at stake.

Which didn't help when each step made his ankles stab with pain. He realized he was digging his fingers into Leoben's upper arm, and tried to relax his grip. "Sorry."

"You're not hurting me," he replied mildly. But there was nothing mild in his eyes as he glanced at Sam and murmured, as if he was quoting something, "Enemies shall walk together as brothers." Which sounded familiar to Sam, like it came from the sacred scrolls, but he couldn't remember the whole phrase. His brain refused to dig for the reference from his first foster mother's 'proper' religious education, when he only wanted to get the hell off his feet.

Finally, the previously featureless corridor led into a large open room, which appeared to be some sort of control room. Large screens made of falling water hung above narrow tables, where more water ran in troughs over small blocks of red and yellow lights. The water seemed restful and less alien than the intense white and red lights everywhere.

There were no obvious buttons, though he saw one of the Fives with his hand in the water and his eyes closed, and realized that he was interfacing with the ship in some way. Sam jerked his eyes away at first, finding it strange, but forced himself to look again. They were Cylons, not humans, and he had to remember that.

There were, it seemed, no chairs in the whole place, but Thea and Leoben led him to a water-filled basin on a pedestal, which was either some kind of control panel or a sink. She did something to it, so the water drained out. "Sit on this."

"Thank you." Perching on the edge to take his weight off his ankles helped some, and for a moment, he concentrated on breathing. His heart rate remained stubbornly fast and loud in his own ears, and his legs throbbed with it, making him queasy.

He tried to distract himself by looking around. The Five across the way, who was wearing a noxious blue velvet suit Sam was fairly sure he'd seen on a club manager two years ago on Caprica, took his hand out and turned to look straight at Sam. His expression tightened with revulsion, and Sam faced him, not knowing whether a show of friendliness would appear like weakness. So he didn't smile, just kept his face neutral and calm.

Then Five faced the Sixes. "What is he doing here? Humans are forbidden from the control center."

"There is no such rule," the brown-haired Six told him. "And if you want to make a rule, you'll have to wait until the full consensus forms."

The Five snorted and put his back to Sam with a dramatic gesture of disgust, and Sam couldn't help rolling his eyes. Thea saw and her lips twitched in a secret shared smile.

The smile faded at the sound of more people approaching and Sam took a deep breath as anxiety tightened his gut. He tried to hold onto the feeling that he was supposed to be here, supposed to be doing this, but as the skinjobs filed into the room, it all seemed like a particularly stupid idea.

Another of the pale-haired Sixes entered, with two Eights flanking her. One was the same Eight from earlier, escorting Sharon and Caprica. Then he frowned, wondering how he knew. He glanced between the three platinum blonde Sixes - except for their clothing, his eyes told him they were identical. But they weren't. On some other level - a Cylon level? - they felt different. Perhaps this was a new refinement of the chills he'd had in their presence before.

"Sam?" Sharon said, with a smile. "I'm glad to see you again."

"Sharon," he smiled back, "and Caprica, looking much better than when I saw you last."

Caprica blinked in surprise then nodded. "Yes. You too." She glanced down at his legs, clad in pants borrowed from a Four, and the bandaged ankles beneath. "Though I heard you were hurt."

"Yeah. I won't be running away any time soon," he joked, but it was too true to be actually funny.

They were interrupted by another entrance, and Sam lifted his head to see one of each of the rest of the models enter. He got a little shiver when he realized the Three was looking right at him, and while he didn't think she was the same one he'd been near before, he had the feeling it wasn't going to matter a lot.

Cavil moved to the middle of the floor and turned slowly, taking note of who was there. His eyes slid right over Sam. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "We have important work spreading the word of God to the humans," his voice lingered sarcastically over 'word of God', "and you interrupt to deal with one insignificant human? Why is there even a question? Interrogate him about the missing battlestars."

"No," Caprica objected. "This is Sam Anders. It can't be a coincidence that the Raider rescued him and brought him to us."

"Of course it's not a coincidence," Cavil agreed impatiently. "The Raider has defective priorities, and took a prisoner when it should have killed. Where is the Raider now? We need to box it."

Sam started with alarm at the thought that they were going to do something to his Raider. But there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop them, he knew, and waited tensely for the answer.

The dark-haired Six shook her head. "It flew away and we have no way to identify it."

Sam was relieved it had disappeared into the mass of all the Raiders and kept his secret. At his side, Thea glanced at him, noting his reaction, and she slipped a hand over his, giving his fingers a quick squeeze.

Cavil demanded, "You didn't restrain it, even though it was clearly defective?" He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "When it keeps taking prisoners, you're going to feel ridiculous ascribing some sort of supernatural meaning to broken programming and a human making up stories to stay alive."

Many of them nodded, some of the Sixes shifted uneasily, and the Eights - even Sharon - glanced around at the others.

But Leoben didn't seem to have any doubts. He confronted Cavil from Sam's left with a steady voice and zealous eyes. "The Raider brought him to us, because he has a message from God."

"Oh really?" Cavil finally faced Sam and sneered, "Let me guess. We should leave."

Sam knew this was his big chance, maybe his only chance. He pushed away the mass of nerves that threatened to strangle him, lifted his chin and faced Cavil down. "Nobody belongs here: not you, not me, not the humans down there already. That much I know."

"And what makes you so sure?" Three asked, stalking forward. Her voice was a dangerous purr. "Did you cast some bones in the water? Isn't that what human oracles do? Invoke your false idols with a dead chicken and a chant?"

He tightened his jaw from reacting against the slur on the Lords of Kobol and answered with his voice carefully neutral, "I saw it. I _**feel**_ it, even now. Being here is wrong."

"Big surprise," Cavil retorted with dripping sarcasm.

"You always scorn what you don't understand," Leoben told him. "Anders tells us what we should already know - this effort is doomed."

"Well, that's quite a change, isn't it?" Cavil returned. "Less than a day ago, you were adamant that our path leads to New Caprica to show the poor lost lambs the word of God."

"Our path did lead us to New Caprica. And you were against it," Leoben pointed out.

"I'm not going to change my mind now, just because one lone human thinks it's a bad idea," Cavil retorted, glaring back. "But I suppose that's what happens when you believe the vague natterings of an insane machine are also the 'voice of God'."

"Nobody's changing the plan," Caprica cut in before Leoben could tell Cavil how wrong he was. "This is a test. We need to be careful that we show them love."

"We need to learn to live in peace," Sharon added firmly. "That's what we decided, because the attacks on the Colonies were a sin. That hasn't changed."

They all looked to Leoben as if he had some sort of deciding vote. He shook his head. "Everything has changed. We shouldn't be here. But if we stay, then certainly our purpose is to help."

"Then it's decided," Caprica said with a bright smile, as if cutting off any other possible dissent. "Our plan of helping the humans and bringing them the word of God remains in effect."

Sam stirred, parted his lips to tell them this was the wrong choice, but he shut his mouth. It was happening again -- he warned them and warned them and nobody listened. What good was it to know the future if no one would heed him?

"And the human?" Doral asked.

D'Anna smiled at Sam. "Interrogate him about where the battlestars went."

His stomach seemed to drop at the threat, but his voice was steady. "I was floating in space when they jumped. I have no idea."

"Oh, but if you're an oracle and you have visions, shouldn't you know?" she asked, with honeyed mockery.

"Stop," Caprica declared, stepping between them. "Enough. No interrogation. Showing humans the love of God starts with him."

"You can't protect him forever, sister," D'Anna warned softly, but she moved away and Sam had the feeling he'd just escaped.

"Drop him on New Caprica with the rest of his kind," Simon suggested. Several of the Cylons nodded with the suggestion, and Sam thought that was the most reasonable thing he'd heard a Cylon say.

Five snorted, "You want to put a known insurgent leader on New Caprica? You know he won't waste time plotting ways to kill us."

"Or getting other Cylons to do it," D'Anna said, with a sneer at Caprica.

Agreement with them came from an unexpected quarter. From beside him, Thea said, "Sam came to us. I don't believe it was just an accident or flaw in the Raider's programming - God brought him here for a reason. He should stay with us until we find what it is."

Cavil listened to her and then threw up his hands with a sigh. "You want to keep a human as a pet, be my guest. But he doesn't interfere with our operations. He's interfered too much already."

Caprica glanced at the other Sixes, saw no dissent, and said, "We agree."

Sharon jumped in quickly, "Agreed."

"Agreed," Leoben added.

"He should be in a cell and interrogated," Five said, paused, and added with great distaste, "We agree."

Simon still looked grumpy, but said nothing.

"Take him out of here," Cavil ordered. "We have other business to discuss, since we're all present."

Caprica and Thea exchanged a glance, and then Thea slipped an arm around Sam's waist. "Come with me," she urged softly. Leoben also pulled Sam's arm across his shoulder to help him.

Sam thought about asking whether Leoben shouldn't stay, but when he was back on his feet and turned toward the door, he saw that another copy of Leoben had slipped into the room at some point.

He gave Sam a slight smile as they passed him, and it struck Sam how it was exactly the same smile he'd seen on the one beside him. They were the same. Only their shirts were different.

Cylons. He was on a Cylon ship, surrounded by Cylons. They hadn't ordered him tortured or killed. Gods. His body broke into shivers, and he wished he had on more than tanks, since the cold seemed to have settled in a big lump of ice in his chest. To distract himself from how weird everything was and the return of pain in his ankles, he cleared his throat and commented to Leoben, "So, I see you're not the only one who looted the Sisters of Mercy thrift stores for your clothes."

On the other side, Thea snickered. "So we've told him, many times."

"We took what was unwanted," Leoben explained. "Clothes aren't important."

Sam - who'd once been under contract to wear only one brand of outerwear, even when they had to custom-make everything to fit him - would have disagreed, but he was pretty sure if he opened his mouth, he'd make a really embarrassing sound or lose everything in his stomach, so he clenched his jaw and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Every step was like walking on knives.

They got in a lift and when the doors opened again, it wasn't far to a spacious room that had a bed in the middle of it. It was a bit surreal to have the bed and its maroon satin sheets looking so human in such alien surroundings, but he was glad to see it. With a sigh, he hobbled to it and crawled across it. It was short for his height, but that didn't matter when he raised his legs on the headboard in an effort to slow the swelling. He bunched the smooth coverlet into his fists. "Frak," he muttered, closing his eyes and giving in to the pain rising like a tide through him. "Frakking Gods."

The mattress dipped as Thea sat beside him. "Those pills Four gave you aren't working?" she asked.

"Not yet."

He jerked when he felt something cool on his face, then realized it was a damp cloth, wiping at his sweaty forehead gently. "Try to rest," she coaxed him. "You're safe. You have time to heal."

_**Safe**__._ He wanted to laugh - he was in the middle of a Cylon basestar, with two skinjobs in the same room, and there were Centurions out in the hall - but he was safe.

Pulsing red light highlighted her pale hair and the intense white lights made the shadows fall oddly across her, turning her lovely face into something strange and fearful.

"What am I? Your prisoner? Is Cavil right? Am I your human pet?" he asked, looking from her to Leoben who was standing behind her.

Leoben didn't smile and his gaze didn't waver. "Our oracle."

She nodded her agreement, and her fingers caressed damp hair back from his face. "They didn't see the Raider bring you in and defend you against the Centurions, or let you rest against it like you were its master. That couldn't be defective programming - that was the hand of God. You were brought to us for a reason. Not New Caprica, I don't think. Something… bigger."

He shook his head, about to speak and tell her that was all he had, but she slipped a finger across his lips, silencing him. "We'll find out together, Sam."

They believed him, he realized. They thought he was human and they still believed him. It was what he had wanted, and yet suddenly he thought he could handle torture much better than this. Their belief felt oppressive, too heavy to carry, and panic welled up in his throat. He wanted to shout at the Gods that he was just a frakking pyramid player, and they should leave him alone.

Shutting his eyes to block it out, he had a sudden thought of Kara, somewhere out there with _Galactica_. She believed him too, but in a human way, with teasing and eye rolling. Gods, he wanted to go home.

Seizing their combined tags in his fingers, he imagined himself back in the clunky human-ness of the old ship rather than the sleek sameness of the basestar, the smell of fifty years of machine oil and cleaning fluid and people crammed into a small space, and the soft feel of her skin under his hands.

* * *

Kara sat on the floor and threw the Pyramid ball against the opposite wall. Each time it came back, she caught it with a solid thump against her palm.

The hatch opened but Kara didn't look up, bouncing the ball with a moody thwack. The only one who'd dare to come in here was Helo, and she was going to throw the ball at his head if he talked to her.

Instead, she heard a female voice. "Starbuck?"

Kara caught the ball and glanced up to see Nora waddling closer. She had thought a month ago that Nora was going to explode, now every time she saw Nora, she braced for the kid to pop out. She looked uncomfortable as all hell. "Sit down, Buzzer." She jerked her head toward the opposite rack and Nora eased herself down with a relieved sigh.

"Gods, I can't wait to have this kid," Nora said with heartfelt prayer. "Ishay says any time. I'm glad she has some experience with deliveries, since the doc's back on the planet."

Kara just nodded, wondering why Nora was talking to her about this. It wasn't like Kara knew the first thing about babies.

Nora got that from her silence or finally got to the point, and asked, "You thinking about Sam?"

With her hand clutching his Pyramid ball -- the one she'd stolen from Caprica that first time -- Kara knew it'd be stupid to say no, even though her first instinct was to deny it. She glanced down at the ball and turned it in her fingers. "Trying not to."

"We've been thinking about him, too, and we thought there was something you should know." Nora paused, and Kara glanced up, curious.

Nora took a breath and said, "When Sam warned everyone not to go down, after the Ground-breaking Ceremony, Duck didn't believe him. He said," she smiled briefly in remembrance and imitated Duck in a rough deep voice that made Kara snicker, "'Anders is a ball player, not a frakking oracle. He's just looking for attention. You can't seriously believe what he's saying?'" Her smile faded. "But of course I believed him. I believe in the Gods, and I believed they gave him a message about New Caprica. I got Duck to stay. But time passed, nothing happened, and we were going to muster out after all -- but then Sam came to us."

Kara sat up straighter, frowning at Nora. She knew the Clellans had intended to go down to the surface when Nora found out she was pregnant, but then they hadn't left. Kara hadn't really thought about why, except to be relieved that at least Duck could help fill the rapidly shrinking roster.

Nora ran a hand across the blanket of the rack and ended the gesture with her hand on her belly in a protective gesture. "Sam _**pleaded**_ with us not to go down. He said he knew that none of us - not Tucker, not me, not our child - would leave New Caprica alive. Now I know he was right. I think we would be dead if he hadn't warned us."

"He … didn't say anything about that to me," Kara said slowly, wondering why he'd never mentioned a feeling or vision that the Clellans would die on New Caprica.

Shaking her head, Nora added, "No. He made us promise not to tell anyone. This was after Helo dubbed him Oracle, and Kat was giving him a hard time, and …" she trailed off, politely not mentioning Kara had also teased him about it. He had, eventually, stopped telling people that something terrible was going to happen on New Caprica. Kara had known it ate at him, watching people ignore his warning - the day the Tyrols had gone down, he'd gotten so drunk he'd passed out on the floor of the head.

Nora finished when Kara didn't say anything, "Anyway, Tucker and I both feel we owe our lives to him. I'm sure you don't think it's a fair trade, but… we'll do our best not to waste what he gave us, I promise."

Kara nodded, not able to find any words, and watched Nora lever herself upright. Nora got all the way to the hatch before Kara managed to call to her, "Nora."

Nora turned, and Kara had to clear her throat. "He would." Nora frowned, not understanding, and Kara clarified with a glance down at Nora's pregnant belly. "He did make that trade: one new life for his. And I know he did it willingly."

Nora patted her child-to-be and smiled. It was a sad smile, but still one filled with hope and joy, that somehow made Kara feel as if, maybe, it had been a fair trade after all. "Gods bless, Kara"

She left, and Kara went back to bouncing the pyramid ball.


	2. Chapter 2

_Darkness. A darkness so thick and unrelieved it had weight, pressing down on him._

_Dust and dirt coating his nose and mouth. Tongue and throat parched with thirst. _

_Air was coming from somewhere, or he'd be dead already. But every breath hurt so much. Everything hurt. There was a weight on his chest, and he couldn't feel his feet._

_He could move one hand, and that hand groped through the dirt and along the rough edges of the concrete blocks that made up his dark prison. But he wasn't strong enough to move them. His fingers sought his mother who had been next to him when the rumble started. He touched only broken concrete and metal and dust. There was nowhere to go. _

_He cried out for her to help. Someone. Anyone. He prayed to Poseidon, patron of Picon, to save him._

_No one answered. All he heard was the groaning around him and his own shallow breaths, ragged with pain and fear._

_He was trapped. Buried. He was dying..._

__

Hands shook him awake.

His eyes shot open, gasping for air. His heart was pounding frantically in his chest, panic still sliding through him.

"Sam?" he felt Thea next to him, her hand on his face. "It's okay, it was a dream."

He took several breaths, trying to calm down. He could feel the sweat at his temples and his chest, making him feel cold. He stared at the bright red light pulsing in the walls and then up to the high ceiling, trying to remind himself he wasn't buried any more.

If he ever had been. But false memory or not, the terror was real enough.

"Can you tell me what it was about?" Thea asked softly. Her body was a welcome warmth next to his.

"I was buried in an avalanche when I was a kid," he answered shortly. "I haven't had that nightmare in a long time." He wondered why it had come back now. Even the collapsed parking garage with Caprica and Sharon hadn't called it back, but now he felt ill and cotton-mouthed and the ache in his lower legs was a throbbing counterpoint to his thumping heart.

Her hands caressed through his hair. "You're safe here," she whispered. "I promise."

He closed his eyes and let her soothe him. Safe... He was safe, but stuck. The room was spacious, but he hadn't left it in … He counted and realized he'd been in the room for nine days. No wonder he felt like he was running out of air.

He took a deep breath and turned his head to ask her, "You got a pyramid court on this big ship?"

Her hand pulled back and she stared at him with a confused half-smile. "A what?"

"Pyramid court."

"You're not playing pyramid," she told him firmly. "You need to stay off your feet."

He knew he did. But he needed to get out of the room. He'd exercised as much as he could, which was nothing like his usual routine, and it was not enough to curb the itchy need to _**move**__._ "I need -- I need to do something," he admitted. "I'm used to moving - training, flying… This lying around in bed is getting to me."

She smiled, pleased, and propped her head up on her hand. "You must be feeling better if you're bored. For awhile you didn't want to leave the room."

That was her polite way of saying he'd spent most of the time wishing for more yellow pills, in between difficult trips walking to the head. But the pain had faded with the swelling, and he was ready to see new walls. Even if the new walls looked an awful lot like the old ones. "I figured I should stay out of the way," he agreed. "But now, I want to move around." She eyed him in disapproval, and he added hastily, "Not a lot. But this room is… not very interesting."

The room was boring as frak, actually. Talking with his few visitors, eating decent food, and limited workouts were the highlights of his last few days. He was probably going to get to the point where he'd kill for a copy of one of those great classics of literature he should have read in school. A really long one.

She glanced around, as if she'd never seen the room before, and nodded. "All right. We don't have a pyramid court, but I'll see what I can do," she offered.

"Thank you," he said. His gaze strayed down, to the deep V of the top of her short sapphire satin robe and the pale skin revealed there between her breasts. He jerked his eyes back to her face, wishing he could unthink the thought of whether she had anything on beneath. And she'd noticed that he'd looked. Trying to put himself more at a formal distance, he cleared his throat and said, "I'm sorry I woke you. And I'm grateful for your help, but really, you don't have to nursemaid me."

"I want to," she answered and touched the back of his hand with her fingers, stroking lightly up his arm. "I'm learning so much from you, Sam."

That felt like deep and dangerous waters, so he grinned and joked, "Like Triad?"

She laughed softly. "Oh, that's the least of it. You make me feel… alive," she whispered and leaned forward, obviously intending to kiss him.

He froze, wondering what he could do. He didn't want her to, but what would happen if he rejected her? Would she get angry and withdraw her protection? Would all the Sixes get angry by proxy?

He was still wondering what to do, when her lips touched his very briefly and then pulled back. Her eyes met his, and she looked sad, as she touched the dogtags hanging around his neck.

"I hope she knows what a gift you are," she murmured.

"I -- I'm sorry," he said.

"God brought you here to be our oracle, I know that," she said. Slipping from the bed, she stood beside it and tightened the belt on her robe as if it were armor. "But I can't help wondering if he brought you to me."

"I don't know," Sam answered as honestly as he could, feeling her confession deserved some sort of return truth, even if he couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear.

She forced herself to give a small smile and nodded. "Fair enough. Get some rest, Sam. It's early yet."

Soundless on her bare feet, she walked out through the open archway.

Sam watched her go and leaned back, letting out a breath of relief. He clasped the pair of dogtags and closed his eyes, hoping for better dreams.

* * *

Kara stared at the board in the pilots' room, eraser in hand. And found she couldn't move.

"Starbuck" was at the top as CAG. Squadron leaders Kat and Racetrack and Duck. At the bottom of the list beneath Duck was Oracle.

She heard footsteps and turned quickly, sharp words on her tongue to chase whoever it was away.

Sharon came in, trailing her fingers along the seats as she moved toward Kara. She was wearing BDUs like Kara's, with tags at her chest. Somehow it was both surreal to see a Cylon in uniform, and yet also familiar, since it reminded her of Boomer before everything had gone wrong.

"Figuring out new CAP assignments? I can help," she volunteered. But when she got close enough, her gaze fell on the name at the bottom of the list. "Oh. I'll do it," she offered and she tried to take the eraser.

Kara ripped it away, suddenly furious. "No. Don't touch it!"

Sharon took a step back. "Sorry."

Kara shook her head, blindly staring at the black scrawl of his callsign. "I … " then she laughed once. "You'd think I'd be used to this by now."

"I don't think you can ever get used to losing the people you love," Sharon murmured.

About to accuse her bitterly of what the frak a machine knew about losing anything, Kara clamped her mouth shut, feeling ashamed of herself. In some strange need to make amends for her unspoken attack, she murmured, "I … I almost asked Sam to marry me the night you and Karl got married. I was a little drunk and it seemed like everyone was doing it…"

"Really? But you didn't," Sharon said.

Kara shook her head. "He fell asleep on me. I thought there'd be plenty of time…" Her voice wobbled and she forced a laugh. "Yeah. Turns out I was wrong. Imagine that."

Sharon moved closer again. "Kara, you couldn't have expected them to find us. And it was just bad luck the Heavy Raider hit the Viper in exactly the wrong place. Blame God for taking him away, but not yourself. It's not your fault."

Kara heard the words, but it was as if they were in another language, passing her ears without understanding. Because it **was **her fault. She had got Sam into uniform. She had put him in a bird. She had taken a rook on long-range CAP, because she selfishly had wanted to fly with him. Then she had left him behind, a helpless target for the Raiders.

It was stupid, and she knew it was stupid, but she felt that if she erased his name, she would be erasing the last tiny hope of his survival, too. As if the Gods would see her lack of faith and punish her by taking him away. Even though she knew he was already gone.

Sharon picked up the black marker from the tray. Kara turned her head to watch, frowning curiously. At the bottom, far right corner, in the list of pilots without bird assignments, just beneath where it said "Helo, Buzzer - CIC", Sharon wrote "Oracle - MIA" in her tidy hand-writing.

Missing. Not killed. Kara let out a long breath, feeling a knot loosen inside, not realizing until that moment how much she'd needed to see that.

Replacing the marker on the tray, Sharon turned to her. Her face soft with sympathy, she said, "It's only been a week, Kara. Give yourself time. There's no rush."

A week. It felt like an eternity. A week of thinking she had just missed him in the corridor, or he had slipped past her in the mess. A week of turning her head to catch his glance, but finding no one there.

Kara nodded and lifted the eraser. In one quick motion, she wiped away the Oracle listed under the squadron.

It still felt as if she was killing him. Her hand tightened on the eraser until her fingers went white.

She reminded herself of the thousands and thousands of people whose fate she didn't know on New Caprica. She had a job to do. Recon. Daily CAP to figure out. And Cylons to fight when the day came again.

If that wasn't enough, at least they were well provisioned with alcohol to chase away ghosts. She was an expert.

* * *

Sharon slammed her way into the _Colonial One_ consensus room. Baltar wasn't there, which wasn't a surprise, but Caprica was, even though she was usually with him these days.

Doral glanced her way. "Someone's in a temper."

"Sharon?" a Six asked, curiously.

Sharon folded her arms and looked at One and Three, as the probable culprits. "Where is Tom Zarek?" she demanded.

"Why?" D'Anna asked. But she shared a glance with Cavil, and Sharon knew she was right.

"I'm told he hasn't been seen in the city since we came," Sharon said. Galen had asked her what she knew. She hadn't been able to resist introducing herself, when she'd seen him on the street. It had been the most uncomfortable and awkward conversation she could remember having, but she thought they'd reached some understanding. Asking about Zarek had been his unsubtle test of whether she meant the Cylons' purpose. "So where is he?"

"He refused to work with us," Cavil said, with a shrug. "You were there."

She stared at him. "You told him he was free to go."

"He knew I was joking, even if you didn't," Cavil said, with his usual condescension that made her wish she could smack the whole model line.

"What did he do?"

"He refused to cooperate," Three said as if that was all they needed.

"So what, then? You've put him in a cell somewhere?" Sharon demanded.

Doral snorted. "Even the humans consider him a terrorist. Of course we didn't let him go."

"He's the vice-president!" Sharon objected. "We can't keep him in custody, when he didn't do anything wrong!"

"He blew up a government building," Three said.

"On Sagittaron, thirty years ago! Because his people were being treated like slaves. Are you expecting to turn the humans into slaves? Is that why you're so scared of what Zarek might do?"

"He told us he was going to fight us," Caprica said, looking uncomfortable. Sharon rounded on her, shocked that she was apparently part of this, too.

The other Six on her left nodded, and added, "It's for their own safety as much as ours. He thinks violence is the answer, and doesn't care about human casualties."

They were correct, but they were rationalizing, and it made Sharon a little ill. "Where?" she demanded again.

Three moved forward, and Sharon thought of a snake, sidling closer before it struck. "That information is restricted to internal security, which is not your department."

Sharon thought back to (non-existent) drill sergeants in Basic and straightened her back, meeting Three's eyes. "I am on this consensus. I speak for the Eights. Where is he?"

Unexpectedly, Four answered from the corner where he had been observing silently, "The central building has been made secure. He's there. He has adequate food and water."

Sharon listened with appalled disbelief. "The central building is supposed to be administration and apartments. Not a prison!"

"Only one small section," Caprica reassured her. "And only temporarily. We'll continue to build apartments for them."

Sharon shook her head, looking at her friend and then turning to address them all. To plead. Even though she knew they weren't going to listen. "Instead of throwing a man in prison for spitting in our faces, we should set him free and give him a place to live. Confound his expectation by showing compassion. Let's show Zarek and all the humans that we're here to help, like we said. This is confirming what he already believes."

Cavil snorted with disdain. "Which is all well and good, until he starts confirming what we believe about _him_, but with guns and bombs. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to have to resurrect after being blown up." He gave a theatrical shudder.

Sharon made one last appeal, looking at Caprica and her sister Six. "I had my doubts, but now I don't. We need to let him go, before this gets out of control."

At least the Sixes shifted as though her words were reaching them. But Caprica said, "Zarek's only one man. Even Gaius doesn't think he'll ever work with us. But we do need to be careful and keep it at one, or we risk turning them against us even more. Building more housing units, food, clean water -- all the necessities will help them understand we're here to help raise them out of the squalor they're living in."

When Sharon found herself looking around for a Leoben to support her, even though she knew perfectly well all the Twos had refused to come down to New Caprica, she knew she'd lost.

She swallowed hard. "Imprisoning their leaders isn't the way to win their hearts." She remembered what Anders had said, with his blue eyes alight with conviction, and murmured, "Maybe he's right; we don't belong here."

Cavil and D'Anna exchanged a glance. Caprica pressed her lips together, met her sister's eyes and then nodded at Sharon a little sadly.

"If we can get to actual Cylon business?" Doral asked, with an impatient sneer. "Instead of doing the bidding of a human who should be in the cell next to Zarek?"

Sharon folded her arms and subsided. They weren't going to listen to her. She'd tell Galen that Zarek was being detained because he'd made threats against the Cylons. Maybe she'd also happen to mention where he was being kept.

What Galen did with that information wasn't Cylon business.

* * *

Thea led him by the hand and then told him to open his eyes. He already knew he was in one of the landing bays, feeling the open space around him. But he did not expect to be facing a Pyramid goal.

He grinned with pure delight, and Thea grinned back, very smugly. She held a black ball in her hand which she handed to him, and teased, "Happy nineteenth day anniversary, Sam."

Instead of thinking about how he'd been on this ship almost three weeks, he turned to see who else was there. Drea, two other Sixes including the brown-haired one, Leoben, and three Eights were all watching him, with various stages of indulgence, as he took the ball from Thea. "How?" he asked. "Where did you find it?"

"I found the specs in our database," Thea answered. "A Centurion built it. It's completely regulation. I know there's only one so it's not a court -- "

He seized her arm with his free hand to stop her from apologizing. "It's perfect. Thank you." Quivering eagerly, he knew he had to try it. Limping forward to where the foul line would be, he turned the ball in his fingers, took a deep breath to calm himself, and threw. He knew it was perfect the moment it left his hand, and was grinning before it even hit the hole. The sound of it clattering down the chute mixed with the sound of applause from the gathered watchers.

As one of the Eights retrieved the ball, he turned to Thea. "You want a turn?"

Another of the Sixes handed her a second ball, and she smiled. "Show me what to do?"

He ended up sitting on a table a Centurion brought in and giving impromptu lessons on how to throw. It was odd but interesting how even within the same model, some were better than others. Everyone seemed to have fun, laughing and teasing each other as they practiced throwing while he helped them with their form. He was certainly enjoying himself more than he had for weeks - it wasn't often that he had an open license to put his hands on women's bodies. The bodies were the same, which was a little strange at first, but he'd been on the ship long enough that it was becoming… normal. Which could have been frightening if he let himself think about it too much, so he focused on how attractive both the Sixes and Eights were and he physically adjusted their position or stance more than he needed to.

"What is this?" an indignant deep voice demanded, and it echoed off the far walls.

Sam clapped for Drea, who had just made a goal, and turned his head to see one of the Fours staring at them.

"Pyramid," he held up the next ball for explanation. "Teaching them how to throw. You want a turn?"

Four didn't answer the question. "And why," Four asked the other Cylons, "are you learning how to throw a ball for a human game?"

"Why not?" Thea asked. "We have an expert right here, why shouldn't we learn to play? Sam offered to teach us."

Thea moved closer, standing between him and Four, and leaned her hip against his knee. Her hand fell on his thigh and her fingers rubbed idly.

Ever since her impromptu confession, he'd realized how much she was always touching him. For a few days, she'd stayed apart, but quickly things had returned to normal, with her fingers in his hair or touching his hand. At first he felt odd about it, but since she didn't try to touch more intimately, he decided it was better to let her. And if there was a selfish desire to feel wanted and safe in that decision, he ignored that, too.

The other Sixes didn't seem to notice, or if they did, they smiled and kept away as if Thea had some sort of claim. Some of the Eights looked a little wistful and they tended to be touchy-feely as well.

But Simon saw Thea's hand and her closeness, and his brows drew together in a deep frown. The disapproval puzzled Sam, since he'd thought all the Cylons would be jumping for joy at the prospect of getting another Cylon into the sack with a human. When Simon spoke, it wasn't about Thea though. "First Triad, and now pyramid?" he said.

"Everybody already knew how to play Triad," Sam pointed out. It was odd that they all knew the basic rules to Triad, but none had played before he suggested it. "I just wanted a game."

They'd started with three players, but last night the game had grown popular enough to need a second table and small metal rivets for stakes. One of the other Fours had peeked in last night, but left without joining in.

Simon folded his arms and glared at Thea's hand on Sam's leg. "While you're being cozy with the human," he said to her, "you should know that one of the humans shot and killed a Three on the surface this morning. She was supervising Centurions building new living quarters."

Thea glanced at Sam, alarmed and sad. Sam was neither - he shrugged. "I'm surprised it took this long. What else did you expect?"

"Gratitude," Simon said flatly. "To not get shot at while we're helping."

Sam's temper sparked at that and he inhaled a deep breath, trying not to snap back. He set his fingers on the ball, and hurled it overhand. It hit the goal basket with a loud clang, making everyone jump, and tumbled loudly down the chute to the give-back. No one moved to retrieve it; they were all watching him.

Then he faced Simon again, jaw set. "After killing millions of people in the Colonies, you're gonna have to work a lot harder than a little food and a few houses to earn any sort of gratitude. It's not that easy. There's a lot of hate that's gonna take time to go away. If it ever does."

"If it's so futile, why should we even try?" Simon demanded.

"I said it would be hard, not impossible," he returned. "And you do it because it's right."

"Because it's what God wants us to do," one of the Eights added.

Simon waved a hand impatiently, and ignored her. "What about you?" Simon asked, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion at Sam. "Other humans are trying to kill us, and you're teaching your enemies to play games. Are you that much more forgiving? Or do you have a different plan to destroy us?"

Sam knew he was walking a minefield, and considered his words. He couldn't lie and say he forgave the Cylons, because he didn't. Thinking about the Colonies raised up that cold rage he'd lived in on Caprica, so he put it on the list of things to not think about. He answered finally, "If I was down there, yes, I'd be one of those shooting you. But up here, I see things differently. I'm not here for vengeance." He shrugged and let out a soft sigh. "I'm not trying to destroy you through Pyramid or Triad. It's just something fun to do."

The games were something to keep him occupied while he waited for something to show him why he was here. But now that the humans had started their resistance on New Caprica, he had the cold feeling it was coming closer.

Simon confirmed it the moment he opened his mouth. "The consensus has requested greater Centurion presence to deter attacks."

Sam drew a breath. "You mean _encourage_ attacks, because that's what they'll do."

"No, because the colonial authority has a new law that anyone caught with a weapon will be taken to detention."

Detention was just a fancy word for jail. It would start with jail for weapons possession but it wasn't going to end there.

Thea glanced at Sam, looking alarmed.

One of the Eights said, "If they have weapons, obviously they're dangerous and they want to make trouble…"

"Exactly," Simon agreed. With another frowning look at Thea's hand, which was now curled around Sam's arm, he left.

Sam stared at the pyramid goal, all his delight in it gone.

"Sam?" Thea asked softly and leaned close, her cheek against his shoulder.

"It's starting," he murmured. "Everything I feared. It's coming true."

The Eights exchanged a look of mild alarm. "We should talk to Sharon," one of them said.

"You don't need to talk to her," Drea said impatiently. "You know what she'll say. Our mission here is love, not escalation."

"But the humans are killing us," another Eight said, brow furrowed in worry. "They won't stop with one Three."

"No, they won't," Sam agreed flatly, and a deep, shocked silence fell. "But that's the price you pay for being here. You resurrect; the billions of humans on the Colonies didn't. They're gone -- wherever they went, they can't come back from it. If you want to help the humans, you need to remember that they have a _reason _for hating you." He kept the anger from his voice and tried to speak calmly. The last thing he wanted was to provoke them into defensive hostility, but their concept of what was 'fair' was screwed up. "There are only forty thousand left, maybe in the entire _universe_. That's all. So they're desperate, and desperate people do desperate things."

They all looked thoughtful. The light brown-haired Six nodded and straightened, looking resolute. Her hair was longer than most Sixes and it softened her features, though Sam thought she seemed harder inside than Thea. He tried to give her different names in his head, but none of them seemed to fit. She was unique on the ship with her different hair color, so he found he didn't really need one.

She declared, "Then we need to keep from making them more desperate. We'll have to make the others listen."

The Sixes and Eights seemed confident that they could do it, but Sam knew nothing had changed.

He looked down at his hands, and they tightened into fists as the memory fell across his eyes again in all its grey, cold horror…

… _the dead thrown in a pit like trash, commingled limbs and staring eyes… blood everywhere but not enough to hide their faces… so many people he didn't know, but some he did, like Stinger and Cally and Zarek … and he had to step on the bodies to climb out… _

His head snapped up and his eyes opened, but saw nothing, forcing himself to look at the memory again and again. Duck and Buzzer's bodies had been in the chamalla vision, that was why he had begged them not to go down to New Caprica. But he didn't see them in the image of it anymore. They weren't there.

They had stayed on _Galactica, _so they couldn't be on New Caprica_. They weren't going to die._

"Sam?" Thea asked, breaking into his reverie. She was frowning at him curiously but with anticipation as well, as if he'd seen something to help them.

Which he had.

He seized her hand with a sudden excitement. Hope flowed like liquid light in his veins, giving him energy so he could barely contain himself and stay seated. "It's not inevitable," he told her and then cast his gaze on all of them, unable to stop smiling. "The future -- it _changed_. It's not what I saw before. That means the others don't have to die. We can save them."

Maybe not all of them, but if he could save some, it would go a long way to making all of this worth something.

* * *

Kara left the rec room with the rest of the bottle and decided to go back to her rack. Maggie was telling Sharon that old story about Helo streaking naked to the academy commons on a dare. Kara didn't want to hear it again, and she was pretty sure she was going to hit somebody if she had to watch him sucking face with Sharon any more.

She needed someone to drink with, but the halls were quiet. Duck wasn't around. He was probably rubbing Nora's feet or some damn thing. Kat was on CAP. And everyone else was listening to that frakking story.

Resigned to drinking alone in the rack room, she fumbled the hatch open and blinked at the sight of someone sitting at the table in the middle. For one brief instant, her heart surged with hope - until her brain caught up with her eyes and the disappointment was like acid.

"Barolay?" she asked in surprise. Barolay had never gone down to New Caprica, instead staying on _Galactica. _As people had left, she'd all but taken over munitions. Kara hadn't seen her much lately.

The redhead seemed a bit hesitant as she spun a tall metal flask on the table. "Starbuck."

"What - uh - what brings you here?" she asked, while her stomach knotted with dread. There was really only one thing, one person, they had in common. And Kara desperately did NOT want to deal with it.

She opened her bottle and took a swallow.

"I want to … I want to see about qualifying to be a pilot," Barolay blurted.

Kara stared at her, not sure she'd heard right.

"I know you need pilots," Barolay said, and her hands turned the flask again. "Kat showed me the simulator yesterday. I pulled a sixty-eight on my first flight. I know I could do much better a second time."

Kara was about to automatically tell her that they weren't recruiting for nuggets and nobody had any frakking time to train anyway. She got as far as opening her mouth. Then she snapped it shut again.

Jean opened the flask and took a swallow of whatever was inside as she waited.

"Why?" Kara asked.

Jean lifted her gaze to Kara's. "A team's gotta fill in from the bench when a starter gets pulled from the game." Her hand tightened on the flask. "If I can't hack it, that's fine, I swear I'll go peacefully. I just… I have to try."

And for a moment, before she looked away, Kara saw the reflection of the same deep pain Kara felt. It occurred to her that Buzzer wasn't going to be able to fill a slot in the flight roster any time soon. She could do the classroom training. In fact, maybe they should see if there was anyone else they could draft into being a nugget and filling some more of their planes.

Kara nodded slowly. "All right. I can't promise anything, but I'll ask the admiral for you."

"Thank you; I just want a shot."

Kara took another drink and decided she was drunk enough to ask. Not that it mattered anymore. "Were you in love with him? Is that why you want this?"

Jean shook her head and added forcefully, "No. Nothing like that. He was my _team_. My friend. I wouldn't have traded that for a frak or two." She got a distant look in her eye and her finger traced the edge of the table. "We met when we played on the Wildcats. He didn't care I was a benchwarmer and he was a rising superstar. We were friends. Then later, when he got traded to the Bucs, I thought it was gonna be great to play together again. But the championship frakked with his head. Some people, they get everything - and they lose themselves in it." She paused and then asked abruptly, "You know he was doing stims, right?"

Kara reared back, shocked. "What? That can't be --" But her words stopped as she realized it explained the shift in his stats after he'd been traded to the C-Bucs. She'd written it off as age and bad coaching. She nodded. "No wonder his scoring turned to shit. How'd he get away with it?"

Jean shrugged. "He didn't. That's why Virgon dumped him. But C-Bucs management didn't care, as long as he played and put people in seats. But of course, moving to Caprica City made it worse. He'd party after a game, frak anybody who looked at him twice, and then take stims the next day. Sue-Shaun dumped them down the toilet, but he always had more. She and I and Hilliard, who met him back in high school, worried he'd end up taking something worse. That or he'd crash that stupid boat he liked so much. Gods." She stopped abruptly and drained her flask, setting it down with a breath.

Kara listened, feeling something inside break a little bit more. She had heard about his tabloid exploits and even tried to ask about the drunken arrest and the serial dating, when he'd rarely been seen with the same woman twice. He'd smirked at her and been really annoying, distracting her so adroitly she'd never realized he was hiding anything. She'd never guessed he'd been a stim junkie. But now that she knew, she wanted to talk to him about it, and she couldn't.

"But then," Jean went on, speaking more to her flask than to Kara, "when the toasters came - he found himself again. That bullshit was gone, and he dropped the stims cold. He was focused, for the first time in _**years**_. And my Gods, it was like the frakking sun came out. We would've all died for him on Caprica."

Kara tried not to remember that she knew what Jean was talking about. That was the Sam she knew - charismatic, intense and burdened by what he knew and all he'd seen - not the stim-addled playboy.

After a small, bitter laugh, Jean added, "Hell, I guess most of us did. I don't know.... maybe it's better this way."

"What? What makes you say that?"

Jean just raised her eyebrows. "You think life's gonna get better for our ragtag fleet? What I can guess about the future's bad enough, without actually _knowing_. At least he didn't see his own end - thank the Gods for small mercies."

Kara just nodded and took another drink, hoping the numbness and forgetting would start soon. All this talk was reminding her that he wasn't going to be coming through the hatch with that bright, goofy grin on his face any time soon.

Jean stirred abruptly, straightening and scooping up her metal flask in one hand. She hurled it overhand forcefully at the wall - miscalculating and hitting the frame of Hot Dog's old bunk instead. The metal clashed and the flask hit the floor.

"Damn him anyway," she muttered and rubbed her face with both hands.

"Here," Kara reached across and put the bottle in her reach. "Have some more. It helps."

"No, it doesn't," Jean said, with a heavy sigh, but picked up the bottle anyway.

Kara fingered her dog tags, feeling the one that wasn't hers and the ring that hung with it. Jean was right - drinking didn't really help, but at least it let her forget for awhile, and she needed that.

* * *

"This is so frustrating," one of the Eights said, with a laugh. "I want to show you the plan for the walkway, but you can't look at it in the datastream."

From his perch on the high stool, Sam glanced down at the liquid of the datafont and wondered… Every time he was in the command center the temptation grew to put his hand in it, but he was afraid it would work and blow his secret. But someday they were going to leave him alone with one and he was going to try it.

For now, playing to their expectations, he touched the liquid - it was cold with a strange slippery texture - and pulled his fingers out again, wiping them on his pants and making a face that made the Eight and Thea chuckle. "Yeah, maybe paper would be better."

But he was relieved he couldn't look. They had started to ask his opinion on everything from apartment layouts to rationing, and while he appreciated that they were trying to help the best way they knew, it made him uneasy to realize they wanted his stamp of approval. Just because he knew what was wrong, didn't mean he knew what was right.

He forced a bit of a smile at her. "I think that sounds like something Baltar's administration should look at anyway. Give them something to do," he said as a joke, with a smile, and she chuckled, but when she moved away, he looked down to the datafont, frowning.

He had to get the Cylons and Humans to work together. But if the Cylons worked too closely with Baltar, that would only make Baltar look more like a puppet. Maybe instead of Baltar, they could get some sort of citizen committee to work with the Cylons…

His stomach roiled in abrupt nausea, and he broke out in cold sweat, clamping his lips together. He clutched the edge of the datafont to keep himself upright.

Something was wrong. New Caprica still filled him with that sense of dread, but this… felt different. A warning that working with the Cylons was going to make things worse? Gods...

"Sam?" Thea moved close beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Something's bad, I can't tell what," he pushed out between gritted teeth, and inhaled deeply, releasing the breath slowly and rolling his shoulders to rid himself of the tension. "Just another useless ominous warning," he added sourly.

Her fingers rubbed at the back of his neck. She murmured, "We try to make things better. That's all we can do right now."

He shut his eyes, focusing on her touch to relax again. After a few breaths, he was feeling more like himself.

The sound of approaching Centurions outside the entryway broke into their moment of quiet. At first he wasn't concerned, until he saw Thea's alarm and realized this was not normal. She shared a glance with the brown-haired Six at the main operations console and as one, they moved toward the center of the room.

Four Centurions marched into the control center, followed by one each of the other human-form Cylon models: One, Three, Four, and Five. Two Centurions didn't stop and instead, came right toward Sam with deliberate intent. Heart leaping, Sam stood up but he was back against the station with nowhere to go.

His hand groped for his sidearm reflexively, but of course he wasn't wearing it.

Two Centurions wrapped their metal fingers around his upper arms. It was an unfeeling grip, careless of bruising, but he bit his lip instead of giving the invading skinjobs the satisfaction.

"What are you doing?" Thea demanded. "Stop!" she ordered the Centurions, who paid her no attention and brought him across the floor to where the other Cylons were gathered.

Her darker-haired sister echoed the protest, "You can't do this!"

Cavil looked at them and said flatly, "Actually, we can."

This was a copy of D'Anna he hadn't met before, but the attitude was familiar as she explained, looking at Sam with a smile on her lips, "We took a vote. We four agreed that this human is a corrupting influence and must be removed immediately, for the good of the Cylon."

"What?" Thea exclaimed. "That's ridiculous!"

"You took a consensus without notifying us?" Leoben demanded and moved to stand next to the Eight and the two Sixes, facing the other four.

"We knew how you would vote," Five said. "It wasn't necessary."

Leoben narrowed his eyes at Cavil. "This is your doing. Such under-handed maneuvering is more human than Cylon."

"At least I'm not the one keeping a human as a pet, pretending he's an emissary from God," Cavil retorted, rolling his eyes.

"He knows things," Thea protested. "He knows being here is a mistake!"

"He would say that, wouldn't he?" Cavil challenged. "He's a human who killed hundreds of Cylons on Caprica. He _hates_ us. Of course he wants us to leave. Look at yourselves!" he demanded, waving to the Sixes and Eights and the one Leoben in the room. "So eager to be human you buy what he's selling. Well, let me tell you a fact, my brothers and sisters -- you are NOT humans; and no amount of coddling his delusions is going to make you human. But since you seem incapable of doing the smart thing, we're going to do it for you."

The other Six glared at Cavil and said in a low, dangerous voice, "Don't do this."

He smiled at her. "It's already done."

"You're interfering in something you can't begin to understand," Leoben warned.

"Did the Hybrid tell you that?" Cavil mocked.

Thea raised her eyes to Four, pleading, "You're not going along with this. You can't. You helped Sam; you know he speaks the truth."

Four glanced at Cavil and back to her. "The human's dangerous."

"Take him," Cavil ordered the Centurions, who then started to pull Sam toward the exit.

"No!" Thea ran forward, stopping abruptly when the Centurions lifted their opposite arms and pointed weapons at her. "You wouldn't dare!" she gasped at Cavil.

D'Anna answered Thea with a poisonous smirk, "It wouldn't be the first Cylon murder, would it, Six?"

"Because you wouldn't listen," the Eight shot back.

Cavil snorted. "Oh, we listened and listened and listened to your chatter, until we all agreed. But now we've found the humans again and it's a new ball game." His smile at Sam was rather jovial. "Right? Isn't that the phrase? Human sports are full of so many clichés, I get them confused."

Sam answered steadily, "The game's not over 'til the final buzzer sounds. I like that one the best."

"This is the final buzzer, human," Five told him, cold and satisfied, and lifted a hand. "Take him out."

Thea looked distressed now, watching Sam with desperate eyes and her hands clasped together. "Don't forget!" he told her.

The Centurions dragged him to the door and he twisted his head to look back into the room. "We're not supposed to be here!" he shouted, pulling futilely at the metal grip. "We're not!"

The sound of the Sixes shouting, "Sam!" trailed behind him in the corridor. But it was a despairing, helpless cry, not one that promised any sort of help.

Sam got his feet under him and caught his breath. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked. "Where are we going?"

The skinjobs walking behind him ignored his questions. Eventually he realized they were heading to the docking bay. The bay was empty except for one Heavy Raider waiting there, and without pausing, the Centurions took him toward the open ramp.

Sam stared at the sensors of the Heavy Raider, trying to catch its attention, but it didn't respond. Then he was pulled up the ramp into the belly.

The light inside was dim and red, and though he didn't have to duck, the space felt close and tight with dark walls that had a strange, damp sheen to them.

Standing between two Centurions, he felt small and short, and his heart was still racing. It seemed they didn't want to kill him, since the Centurions could've just shot him in the command center.

"Keep an eye on our brethren," Cavil told Four and Three. "Make sure they don't do anything stupid."

"Of course," Three agreed and her gaze moved to Sam, and she smirked at him again. "Enjoy your new home."

The ramp closed leaving him with the Centurions, Cavil and Doral. Another Doral poked his head around the barrier at the front -- he was dressed in some kind of black flight suit. "Ready?" His eyes showed a bit of interest on seeing Sam, but looked to Cavil.

Cavil told him to go and the pilot disappeared again in the front. The engines started with a loud purr and the Heavy Raider launched upward.

Cavil came near to Sam. "All right, now that they're all gone, you can tell us. You figured out this ploy on Caprica, didn't you? Caprica Six and Sharon Valerii were easy marks, weren't they?"

Sam dampened his lips. "It's not a ploy or a trick. It's the truth."

Cavil glanced at Doral and lifted a brow -- Doral's hand whipped out and punched him. Reeling backward, jaw exploding with pain, Sam gasped when another fist hit his stomach and the side of his ribs. Strung up between the Centurions, there was nowhere to go, and trying to pull free only threatened to dislocate his shoulders or break his arms.

But worst of all, Doral kicked him right into the healing fracture of his shin with the toe of his boot. The scream ripped from his throat as pain spiked through him like icy shards. Bright lights popped behind his eyelids, and he desperately wanted to faint, but it was an eternity of awareness instead.

It faded enough for him to realize the beating had stopped. He was shaking, repeating 'frak' and 'Gods' like a mantra, and he sagged in the grip of those skinny metal fingers, aching and weak. He kept his leg off the floor, and dragged in panting breaths that turned to painful coughs. He couldn't wipe his mouth and settled for spitting on the floor, but the sharp acrid taste of bile and blood remained in his mouth.

Then he looked up to see both of the skinjobs - Cavil watched with interest, Doral with more than a touch of satisfaction. Sam remembered shooting Cavil in the head on Caprica and wished he'd killed him more slowly. Gods, what had that frakker done to his leg? He couldn't feel anything beyond the shattering pain that rose up with the least movement. "Frak you," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Beating me isn't going to change the truth."

Cavil smiled at him. "I see why they find you appealing," Cavil remarked. "You're attractive and you speak with conviction and, God knows, the Sixes and Eights especially love those things. Two will listen to anyone who claims to know the word of God, because he's just as crazy as the Hybrids are. But thankfully the rest are more sensible and we can now get back to a _reasonable_ plan. Without you, the others will follow along - that's what they do best," he sneered dismissively.

A shiver went down Sam's spine, realizing that he was with the two Cylons who not only thought he was a liar, but really seemed to believe he was corrupting the others.

He cleared his throat and asked hoarsely, "What are you going to do with me?"

"I don't want to act in haste - that's what humans do," Cavil said. "Killing you would be... inconvenient. So, for now, I'm just going to tuck you out of the way and wait. If the rest of the consensus remains stubborn… well," he smiled a little, "There are other uses for you."

Sam grimaced. That was just great. He was going to be a prisoner and a triad card to use against the other Cylons if they didn't toddle along after these two sadistic frakkers.

He had no idea where they were as the ship landed - could be down on New Caprica or anywhere - but it turned out to be another baseship docking bay. This time there were only Centurions, another Cavil, and another Doral waiting on the platform.

"Brother," the two Cavils greeted each other with a nod. They were dressed very similarly in gray and even though the Dorals were in different suits, their expressions were exactly the same. It made Sam suddenly aware that the Cylons he'd been living with for the past two weeks might be different. These seemed more… Cylon-like. More like copies, whereas the Sixes and Eights looked identical, but he could feel that each was just a little bit different....

"It's ready," One said and turned to lead the way.

Sam knew the baseship well enough by now to know that the Centurions were dragging him to the edge of the central core, toward one of the arms. He saw only Centurions and two other Fives who stared at him coldly before continuing on their way.

They went through one of the many identical sitting rooms, this one furnished with a couch and clear dividers, down a short hall guarded by two Centurions, through an open door and into one of the showering rooms. This one had only one entry and was all white, from the panels of light in the ceiling, and the smooth walls, to the slightly rough floor. The floor had a small, round metal grate at each end, for the drains, and there was a shower nozzle on the facing walls.

The Centurions turned around so they- and he - were facing the door. One of the Cavils and Doral stood there, and Cavil smirked at him. "We're a little short on brig space, unlike a human ship. So you'll stay here."

Sam glanced around at the shower room. It wouldn't be that bad. At least he could wash himself and drink and there was enough room to stretch out to sleep….

He should've known better.

"Hold him there," Cavil ordered the Centurions and stepped back. A translucent panel slid across the opening, leaving Sam alone with the two shiny Centurions in a glaring white room.

He pulled against the Centurions' grips on his wrists. "Let me go," he demanded. "I order you to let me go." They didn't, so he turned his hand and yanked. In response to his nearly slipping the hand free, they tightened their grip and lifted his hands higher above his head, pulling his shoulders. "Frak. Let me go!"

As soon as he was secure, the Centurions paid him no more attention, and except for their red eye lights moving back and forth, they went completely still.

He calmed himself, taking deep breaths and closing his eyes against the light. At first the aches and throbs threatened to overwhelm him, but he tried to focus past them. He turned his head toward the Centurion on his right, opened his eyes to stare at it, and _willed_ it to hear him. He was trying to find that same sense of connection he'd had with the Raider. Trying to _feel_ the Centurion too and make it listen.

But there was nothing. No matter how hard he tried, or how long he stared at them, it didn't work. They were steel and wire and electricity - and they couldn't hear him.

When the door panel opened again, hours later, he'd finally given up trying to communicate with them. He'd given himself a headache, his hands were numb, his shoulders were knotted, his body ached, and none of it hurt as much as his right leg whenever he put any of his weight on it.

Doral was alone. At first Sam was glad to see someone he could actually talk to - until he saw the thin, wooden rod in Doral's hand.

"What -- ?" he started and had to clear his throat. "What do you want?"

Ignoring the question, Doral stalked up to him and glared. "You are not a messenger from God. You are nothing, human. You have corrupted the Cylon, a cancer growing in our heart. I will rip it out if I have to, to make it stop." His face, normally so bland, was filled with cold rage.

He struck, quick as a biting viper, laying stinging strips across Sam's stomach and ribs. Sam already had his jaw clenched against crying out, unwilling to give the frakker the satisfaction. He flinched and a gasp escaped him, especially when another blow fell on a bruise from before.

Doral looked at him, sneering, "Tell me it's a lie. Admit that you want to destroy us, and this was part of your human plan."

"Human plan," he repeated hoarsely, and chuckled dryly, giving in to the need to cough. "I wish. Nothing human planned this. Gods, or your Cylon God, I don't know, but --"

"God has nothing to do with you. Turn him."

The Centurions turned and pinned him to the wall. Doral pulled up Sam's tanks to expose the bare skin of his back, and then hit him some more.

Face pressed into the dry smooth wall, his breath whistled harshly through his teeth, and he sucked air when he could. But it was hard to hold onto that determination when pain was a haze that seemed to surround him.

He was shaking and his knees folded at some point, so the Centurions were the only thing holding him up. When it stopped, he didn't notice right away, caught up in the effort not to yell or cry.

Then Doral told the Centurions to let him go. He slipped down the wall, unable to catch himself when he could barely feel his arms.

The Centurions left in a whirr of motors, and Sam lifted his head, thinking he was alone.

But Doral was still there, watching him with a lip curled in disdain, and hatred in his dark eyes. "You're our prisoner, Sam Anders. There is only one of you, and many of us. The Centurions don't tire and they feel no mercy. You can't escape. You will break -- the only question is how long it will take and how much you'll suffer first."

He walked out, still immaculate in his blue suit, and the translucent door slid shut behind him.

Sam curled up on the hard floor, trying to find a tolerable position. He shut his eyes against the glare, but sleep kept skittering out of his grasp. He couldn't think, couldn't sleep, couldn't pass out, he could only lay there and pray it stopped soon, as he shivered through bouts of cold and waves of pain from his abused body.

Eventually, he started to come back to himself. His throat was dry and he realized he could do something about that, since he was in a room with running water. And maybe the cold water would help the swelling. It still took a long time to make his body listen. It didn't like the idea at all and fire-shot darkness passed over his vision when he moved. He stayed on one knee, awkwardly half-crawling, to get beneath the nearest shower head, and used the wall for leverage to stand.

He moved the temperature gauge to cold and turned the water on.

A slow trickle came out, little more than a fast drip. He put his mouth under it to drink, but it wasn't enough to shower. The other faucets were the same.

Bastards had turned off the water, except for the drip. Frak.

He settled back on the floor, a relatively unbruised part of his back against the wall.

Shutting his eyes, he tried to breathe past the fear bunched up in his middle and think calmly about his new situation. He had water, so even if he didn't get food, he would last a few weeks. He hurt, but he didn't think Doral had done any permanent damage, except maybe to the bone in his leg. He was probably going to have to switch the wrap from his ankle to his leg and try to immobilize it, but later, when the mere thought of touching his leg didn't make him want to vomit.

The Cylons didn't want to kill him, not yet, but they wanted him to suffer. They could come in here every day and beat him again, just for kicks. They could torture him worse until he told them the truth, and then they'd do it some more for daring to pretend he was a Cylon. And eventually he'd find out the hard way if he was going to resurrect or not.

But none of that was what he was supposed to do. What he needed to do was get out of this room and find his way to a friendly Cylon or maybe a Raider would give him a lift to New Caprica. It was a showering room, not a brig cell - there should be a way. Once he was out, he knew his way around the baseship well enough.

However, as he explored the room in his slow halting way, he found it was not going to be that easy. The walls seemed solid sheets of some smooth, coated composite, molded into four shower nozzles, and the ceiling was too high to reach. The door was an obvious weak point -- it looked like translucent glass but when he hit it with a fist, it quivered like some sort of plastic. A high-velocity weapon might shatter it, but his fists weren't going to work, and kicking was going to have to wait until his legs were better. If only he had his ammo belt from Caprica and the small brick of G-4 he kept in one of the pockets...

He pried off the little grates to the drains, hoping to find an escape, but the pipe was too small. So he used the far one as a toilet, and rinsed the drain as best he could by leaving two of the nozzles on.

Then, exhausted, he sat down again, aching everywhere and wishing he had a whole pile of those yellow pills.

Was this a test? Could he find his way out of here if he looked harder? Had the Gods abandoned him for failing? Or had he fulfilled his destiny already? Was the Cylon God doing this? Were there no Gods at all, and he was just frakked in the head?

One thing was certain: this was the beginning of the wrong he had been feeling from the beginning, for New Caprica.

Being right was cold comfort as the hours and days crept past, with no way out he could find. Pain was constant, the only companion he had for a long time. His isolation was broken finally - given his beard growth, it had to be at least three days later - by silent Centurions bringing him bitter white mash to eat. It was the most unappetizing food he could imagine, but he was hungry enough to scoop it up with his fingers and eat it.

The next day or so they came back with more of the same, and then again. After each visit, he scratched a mark into the wall with his drain cap, and counted the marks as if they were days, though with the glaring lights and his completely frakked sense of time, he had no idea what they really represented.

Each time the Centurions opened the door, he stared at them, trying to _reach_ them, but there was never a flicker of awareness. He talked to them out loud too, unable to stop himself even though he hated the way his voice started to edge into desperation. He imagined Cavil smirking out of sight around the corner and occasionally shouted for the frakker to show himself, but he never did.

It occurred to him that he could die in this cell, and the toasters might continue to bring food to the cell and never notice. Sam found himself wishing Doral would come back, even if it was to beat him again, just to prove he wasn't forgotten. But he was left alone.

Sleep never seemed restful, full of nightmares of bulletheads shooting at him, fire surrounding him, or being buried alive in a pit full of corpses.

While he was awake, he escaped into daydreams of Kara and Pyramid and his old life on Caprica.


	3. Chapter 3

The candlelight flickered over the table, casting a gentle orange glow through the otherwise dim room.

The Admiral was there, looking proud enough that this might be his own son's dedication. Lee was there, too, with Dee and Showboat to represent the _Pegasus _wing.

All the pilots still on _Galactica_ were there. Helo stood next to Kara. Athena was in CIC -- Kara guessed the thought of being here was too painful for her still. She squeezed Helo's hand and he squeezed back, giving her a glance of thanks.

Everyone had crowded into the rec room, gathered before the makeshift altar. There were four idols on the table - two of them Kara's, lent to Nora. All the priests were on New Caprica, but Ishay had volunteered as a lay sister to direct the ceremony.

Nora came in, holding the baby against her, still so tiny that he disappeared into the blankets. Tucker walked beside her and when his gaze met Kara's, he nodded to her, though whether that was for the loan of the idols or being his CAG or to thank her for coming, Kara wasn't sure.

He was in uniform. Nora was not, even though she'd taken to training the four nuggets with enthusiasm. If anyone thought it was odd that their flight instructor was wearing a baby instead of a uniform, nobody had told Kara about it. Kara was just as glad, since she knew she couldn't handle looking at Barolay every day, sitting in Sam's place in the ready room. It was hard enough seeing her now.

Duck looked around at his fellow pilots and officers. "Thank you all for coming."

Ishay began the chant to Hera and Athena, Zeus and Ares to protect the child and grant him gifts.

When she finished, Tucker spoke again. "Nora and I had decided early on to name a son after her father who died when she was little. But more recently, we changed our minds. About a month before the Cylons came back, I really wanted to go down to New Caprica. I didn't want our child born on _Galactica_," he admitted, with an apologetic glance at Adama, who merely nodded his understanding.

Tucker took a breath. "But Anders came to us, and he pleaded for us not to go down. He said he had seen us dead on New Caprica: me, Nora, and my son. This time…" he trailed off and then added, "I had to believe. When a man warns you your whole family could die, you listen. He saved us. And so, it seems only right that, since we lost Sam Anders, my son carry his name. This is Samuel Theseus Clellan."

Kara started at the name, and her hand grabbed for Helo's arm, clutching his sleeve. Her chest seized up, unwilling to draw breath.

Nora held out the baby, adding in her softer voice, "And we pray that Samuel Theseus Anders will watch over his namesake from Elysium."

Ishay dabbed the sleeping baby's forehead with the oil. "With this mark, we dedicate Samuel Theseus Clellan to the service of Ares and Apollo. May he prove worthy of their blessings and those of mighty Zeus. So say we all."

Everyone echoed, "So say we all."

But Kara could only mouth the words, not speak them, since her throat had closed up. The candle-lights were smearing and turning hazy.

Nora held the baby close again and leaned into Tucker. Looking teary-eyed, she repeated, "So say we all."

Kat broke into the solemn silence, declaring loudly, "To Sammy Clellan, son of Duck and Buzzer, future Viper ace!"

There were chuckles from the gathered pilots along with good-natured grumbling from the Raptor crews, which erupted into catcalls and whistles as the Clellans kissed.

Kara turned, shrugged off Helo's hand, and made for the hatch to get out of there.

She wanted to be happy for them -- and she was -- but that didn't stop her from wishing violently that Sam had been there, and the baby had some other name instead.

* * *

On New Caprica, Sharon took a left between the tents and picked her way through the shadows, counting four on the right. She fumbled for the flap, cursing cold-numbed fingers.

Pulling it aside, she poked her head in. "Are you here?" she whispered.

Galen's voice murmured, "Come in." He turned up a small lantern on a rickety table, so a soft glow spread through the tent. There was nothing else inside.

For just a moment, it felt like the old days, when they would go sneaking off to closets and pretend no one knew. But she looked at his unmilitary beard and civvy clothes, and knew everything was different. He was human, she was Cylon, and that was just the beginning of what kept them apart now.

"Here," she slipped a folded up piece of paper from her jacket and handed it to him. He put it away without looking at it or asking what it was.

"Thanks."

"You have two days," she told him.

"Do you know what time?"

She shook her head. "No. No Eights are part of internal security. But you have to rescue him before then, or he's dead."

He nodded, looking grim. "Can you help?" he asked.

She stiffened, offended and angry. What the hell did he think this was? "I am helping," she hissed at him. "You wouldn't even know about this if it weren't for me."

He held up a hand. "Sorry. I just meant to get us in."

"No," she answered flatly. "We can't be involved. Do what you need to do. And so will we." She thought of the likelihood that at least one of her sisters was going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she was sad for that, but at least they would resurrect; the humans wouldn't.

She turned to go, but Galen called her back, with her name a soft murmur. "Sharon."

Lifting her brows, she waited, and he finally asked, "Why are you doing this? Why are you helping?"

She folded her arms. "I can't believe **you** of all people would ask me that. Is that from Colonel Tigh?"

"The others don't know my source," he said, not acknowledging her guess. "I tell them it's someone in Baltar's administration. But, why? After Cally shot you, after -- after all of it, why help us?"

"Because…" she turned, staring into the darkness, away from the light. There were many answers she could give, but only one counted. "Because this is my fault," she whispered. "And I have to do what I can." She swallowed hard and turned her head to meet his eyes. "We're not all your enemies. Some of us want peace. We came here to help. But the others... don't understand."

He thought about what she said for a moment. "So, no chance the Cylons will pack up and leave?" he asked, with a rueful twist of his lips.

She snorted a bitter laugh. "Not any time soon."

"All right. I better get back. Be careful," he wished her, seriously.

She'd already had bottles thrown at her, and one of these days she was probably going to get shot by one of the humans who couldn't tell her apart from the other Cylons. So she knew the danger was real, if not all that significant. As much as she'd hated waking up in that vile goo, at least she would wake up. She nodded. "You, too, Chief."

She didn't wait to hear him disclaim the title, slipping outside. The chill wind bit at her cheeks as she found her way back to the main aisle and the path toward the secure area.

* * *

Kara was nearly all the way back to the rack room when she heard the voice. "Hey, Kara. Wait up."

Her mouth widened in a smile of anticipation. Lee was coming after her.

He trotted up. "Are you okay? You left the dedication a little abruptly."

She wanted to hit him for reminding her of the ceremony, but instead she waved her open bottle at him. "Just wanted something more to drink. Want to join me?"

She could see the urge to tell her she was drinking too much flit across his face, but he held his tongue and shrugged. "Sure. One drink won't hurt anything."

Snickering to herself, she handed him the bottle once they were both inside. "Here, I've already got a good head start." She spun the wheel to lock the hatch, and smirked when he didn't object.

Kara waited until Lee had taken a swallow and then pushed him by the shoulders into the wall. "Kara -- "

"Shut up," she leaned forward, and for an instant it was odd not to have to tilt her head back. Then her mouth was on his and she was kissing him feverishly. It took him less than a heartbeat to kiss back and put his free hand on her waist as she pressed into him.

She closed her eyes. Her hands moved on his body, across the tight muscles of his shoulders and arms.

"Kara - Kara, no," he objected, breathlessly, but didn't stop her or try to push her away.

"Shut up," she reminded him and kissed him again, making sure he couldn't speak and ruin it once more.

The uniform jacket was too thick, too annoying, too different. She needed skin. She fumbled at the clasps and finally just shoved her hands beneath the hem to touch his stomach - flat, taut, nearly the same. His mouth was familiar, too; she'd been here before and she could lose herself in it.

"Oh Gods," she murmured, when he finally pulled back enough to kiss her throat and got his hand on her breast. She closed her eyes, able to imagine other hands, another mouth doing this, a taller, heavier body next to hers. "Oh Gods, yes, please, Sam, please don't stop -- "

But he did stop, lifting his mouth away. "Kara."

"What?" she demanded irritably, as the moment's excitement fled and she felt cold again.

Lee blinked and inhaled a deep breath. "You said 'Sam,'" he explained.

She frowned. "I did not," she objected, even though she thought maybe she had. That was who she had been feeling.

"I - " he took another breath and slipped out from between her and the wall. "I've been here before," he reminded her. "Catching you on the rebound. But things are different now. I can't do it. I can't hurt Dee like that, not for a quick frak."

"You certainly weren't thinking about Dee when your tongue was in my mouth," she sneered.

"I -- " He couldn't counter that, because it was true. He shrugged sort of helplessly. "I'm sorry. But I learned my lesson about competing with dead men already."

She flinched at 'dead men', and folded her arms. "Fine. You made your position clear. It won't happen again," she told him coldly.

"Kara - "

"Leave the bottle."

He put the bottle on the table and she turned her back, refusing to look at him. He kept talking. "I remember this from Zak. Do you really want to go down this road again? I know it hurts, but-- "

"Frak you," she spat at him. "Go back to Dee and your precious, shiny battlestar, _Commander_. There's nothing for you here."

Still not looking at him, she grabbed the bottle by the neck and took a swig, listening.

Lee stayed where he was for a long moment, and his eyes seemed to dig into her back. She didn't turn, and eventually he gave a sigh. "I'm still your friend, Kara. Please remember that." Then finally he opened the hatch and left.

Kara listened to his steps retreating, then let out an aggravated sigh. Stupid frakker. Like she needed or wanted "friends" right now - just a nice, uncomplicated frak.

Booze would have to do.

* * *

Sam typed in the code - the year he'd won the championship - and the tall wooden doors swung open silently.

Beside him, looking around curiously, Kara asked, "Where are we?"

"My place in Caprica City," he answered. He took her hand and gave her a proud grin. "C'mon, I'll show you."

He led her through the entryway with its white-and-black tiled floor and fountain in the corner, through the arch, and around the corner to the main room, which was dominated by panoramic windows with a view of Picany Bay and the towers of downtown Caprica City to the east.

In real life this house was nothing but radioactive ash, but he ignored that, to imagine bringing her toward the windows. He picked up the wand from the table they passed and turned on the stereo. His favorite make-out song, "Under the Shady Tree" started to play softly from the speakers set in the corners.

"And to think I didn't always bother to pay my electric bill," she mused, gazing out at the expensive view from the Heights, and chuckled ruefully.

"I wanted to show you how it used to be," he murmured and tugged her into his body. "It's nice, isn't it? But it's even nicer with you here…"

He lost himself in kissing her, and how the bright afternoon sunlight made her hair and eyes shimmer. Her mouth joined eagerly with his as her hands went around his back and under his shirt.

He skimmed his hands over her waist and hips, loving the feel of her, and how her breasts were pressed against him.

Then the door opened and harsh white light invaded his dream, which dissolved away, leaving him alone and cold.

He opened his eyes, blinking in the sudden brightness. The daydream of his house and Kara was gone, replaced by the familiar hard floor of his cell. He straightened to see who was coming in, and held up a shaking hand to shield his eyes.

Cavil was standing there in the doorway. Gods, how long had it been since he'd seen anyone but frakking Centurions delivering him that shit they served up to keep him from starving to death? Weeks, he thought. And he was strangely glad to see the skinjob, even if the ache in his bones from the last time hadn't faded yet.

Cavil took in Sam's appearance and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "You stink."

Luckily, Sam's nose had stopped registering the odor, mostly, but occasionally he got whiffs of himself and the drain in the corner, enough to make him nauseous. It took him a moment to remember how to talk, and he had to clear his throat to find his voice, which still came out gravelly. "Yeah. Funny how that happens when there's no water."

Cavil smiled faintly, pleased by his handiwork. Sam wasn't sure if the pleasure gave him more chills because it seemed inhuman, or because it was very human and he knew what it foreboded.

But Sam gathered up his strength, not wanting to admit to fear with this predator watching him. He sat upright and eased back against the wall, demanding, "What do you want?"

"I thought you might want to know that Vice President Zarek was executed for sedition yesterday," Cavil told him casually. "A few insurgents tried to rescue him - it was really quite pathetic. They were all killed in the attempt, of course."

"Zarek?" Sam repeated, and remembered a flash of Zarek's dead eyes in the vision. He wasn't surprised, so much as horrified that it really was coming true. Everything he had tried to do to stop it, hadn't changed anything.

Cavil had a smirk on his face. The frakker was enjoying himself, taunting Sam. He continued, "We're beginning to recruit for our New Caprica Police force. Isn't that exciting? Humans can go places where we can't; they'll dig out the insurgents."

"Nobody's going to help you," Sam snarled.

"Oh, you'd be surprised what humans are willing to do if you promise them things they want," Cavil said.

Sam felt sick at the thought of any humans collaborating with the Cylons, but had to admit Cavil was probably right. Even in the resistance, there had been some willing to stab other humans in the back for advantage. He asked wearily, "Why are you here?"

"I came to find out if you were ready to tell my brethren you were wrong," Cavil said.

"Why would I want to do that? When you just proved me right?" Sam asked. "You don't belong here. Nobody belongs here." He repeated the words flatly, the same words he'd said over and over again, knowing it was futile. "You're destroying our hope of peace."

Cavil snorted. "Just give it up," Cavil advised. "There can be no peace."

"There can, but not here. I **know**. Saying anything else won't make it true."

Cavil sighed irritably. "Come on, Anders, do you want to stay in this shower for another month, talking only to Centurions? Slowly going mad?"

"Why keep me alive?" Sam asked. "Why do you bother?"

"It's not a bother," Cavil shrugged. "I don't even think about you most days. Except that your… followers have become something of a pain in my ass, protesting everything the rest of us do on New Caprica. They don't bend at all, and their incessant whining is becoming irritating. So, here's my offer - you tell them you were wrong and the right thing to do is work with me, and I'll let you go to live with the humans on the surface."

Sam didn't have to think about the offer. "Frak you."

"But I didn't get to the part where I tell you what'll happen if you refuse," Cavil said, with bright menace.

"You're going to torture and kill me. Well, I don't care. Go ahead," Sam snarled at him, weary and impatient.

"Oh, not you. Your death wouldn't gain me anything. Not right now," His voice changed, became more of a purr, "But what about someone else? Do you know Cally Tyrol? She has a baby, and little babies need their mothers …"

Sam stared at him in dawning horror, remembering another flash from a vision -- Cally's face, her eyes wide and blank in death. "You frakking son of a bitch!"

"I believe that's the sound of an accord being reached," Cavil declared with smug satisfaction. "Excellent."

Sam swallowed hard and knew he couldn't let Cally die, if he could prevent it. Defeated, he said, "All right. What do you want me to do?"

Cavil bent down, grabbed Sam's dog tags and snapped them off his neck.

"Hey!" Sam lunged for them, but Cavil stepped nimbly aside. He went to the open doorway, where two Centurions waited. "Give those back!"

Cavil dangled them in his hand. "I assume Captain Thrace has one of yours? Very touching. I'll be sure to give these to her when I see her."

"Stay away from her!" He lunged to his feet and froze one step later, as one of the Centurions raised his arm and the hand turned into a gun.

"So impetuous," Cavil chided. "Especially when there's absolutely nothing you can do."

Sam clenched his jaw and glared at Cavil. He was going to kill the son of a bitch one day. Gods and prophecies and the future be damned. "If you hurt Kara, I will see you wiped out of existence," he promised softly, meaning every word. "All of you. No matter what it takes."

For an instant, Cavil looked uneasy at the threat then he chuckled. "You know, for a moment, I believed you. Until I remembered you're my prisoner and you're not going anywhere. So I think I'll take the chance. But first, just for that, I'm going to go order the death the Callandra Henderson Tyrol."

Sam heard the words in horror. "NO! You can't."

"I can," Cavil said. "And I will. Unlike you, I don't make empty threats."

"But I said I'd do what you wanted!"

"So you did," Cavil said agreeably. "I wanted to know what it would take to break you. And apparently it's the life of one insignificant human. You're pathetic. But really, Sam, why would I want to disturb my carefully nurtured balance of power on New Caprica? Everything's going exactly to plan. Better if you stay here, tucked very safely away. Guard him," he ordered the Centurions, who took up guard stances in the hall again, and the door slid shut.

"No, you can't murder her! You can't! Stop! You frakker, stop!" Sam yelled and pounded on the door. The panels looked fragile, but they merely quivered under his fists. "This isn't how things are supposed to be!"

He sank to his knees, fists still against the door but now holding him up, as his head dropped to rest against the door. He groped reflexively for his tags, but his fingers found nothing. His whisper echoed back to his ears, "I was supposed to stop this. Not make it worse."

* * *

Kara laid all her cards out, grinning. "Full colors. Read 'em and weep, ladies."

She grabbed her cup and drained it as Maggie and Kat groaned. But when she leaned forward to grab her winnings, Sharon put a hand on her wrist to stop her. "I don't think so."

Kara smirked at her and then down at the cards on the table's surface. "Highest hand. You can't beat it."

"Then tell me, _Starbuck_," Sharon said and pulled a card from her yet-unseen hand and smacked it down on the table between them, "where you got one of these, when it's been in my hand the whole frakking time?"

Kara's eyes fell on the card and then back up to Athena's face. "Oops?" she offered with a shrug and a grin.

Kat shoved back from the table. "You frakking cheater!"

"Like you weren't gonna lose anyway," Kara mocked.

"Well, we'll never know, will we?" Kat returned. She leaned down and shoved the rivets and bolts they were using as coin off the table into Kara's lap. "You want it so bad, take it."

She stalked out, and, hot on her heels, Maggie stood up, looking more disappointed than angry. "We're stuck out here in the black, rattling around in this tin can and you start cheating? You better get your head screwed on straight, Starbuck, and quick, or I'm sure the Old Man can find a new CAG."

She left, too, so Kara was alone with Sharon. "You had to be such a drama queen about it?" she hissed at the Cylon.

Sharon shrugged and gathered up the cards, tapping them on the table to straighten them with a sound that made Kara want to rip the cards from her hand and throw them on the ground. "It was the first time I could prove it, Kara. But you've been cheating for days."

"What, you can see my cards with x-ray vision or some freaky Cylon shit?" Kara sneered.

Sharon stared at her in unsettling silence for a moment, as if debating how to respond. Then she answered mildly, but with an edge to her voice, "No. You're just bad at it."

"Why do you give a frak?" Kara demanded impatiently. "It's not real. We're not even playing for fake money, just little bits of nothing. It's only a game."

"Is it?" Sharon retorted. "You had to know someone would catch it eventually. And nobody would want to play with a cheater after that. So I figure this is so you can sit around and pickle yourself in hooch and self-pity in peace."

Kara shoved back her chair and jumped to her feet, quivering in fury. "Shut the frak up. You don't know anything, you toaster."

Sharon gave a little humorless smile, not surprised Kara would go for the slur, but she stayed in her chair and glanced up at Kara, with fearless black eyes. Her voice was cold and sarcastic. "No, I certainly don't know anything about losing someone I loved more than my own life, and sitting around consumed by my own guilt and grief, do I? Frak you. But don't fool yourself - this is all about you, not him. He'd hate what you're becoming."

Ignoring the slice of hurt was easy when she was already nicely numbed. "Yeah, and if he was actually here, I might give a frak what he'd think about it," Kara shot back. She grabbed the bottle off the table and headed out to find clearer air. At the hatch, she turned and mused aloud, "I wonder what the rest of the Cylons would do to their traitor if she suddenly showed up in the resurrection ship?"

Then satisfied that she'd got the last word, Kara banged her way out of the room to go back to her cold and lonely rack.

* * *

The Heavy Raider landed with a thump in the docking bay of the baseship. Sharon followed Caprica down the ramp to the floor.

She tried to ignore the knot of apprehension in her stomach, which grew when she saw a pair of Ones waiting for them. The One on New Caprica had been annoyingly mysterious, saying only that they should go above and see it for themselves. These nodded in unison, a polite greeting with grave faces, but there was also a touch of smug satisfaction in their expressions that made her temper prickle.

"So we're here," she snapped. "What is it we have to see?"

"Near the control center. This way." The pair of them turned and after sharing a glance, Sharon and Caprica followed.

On the way they met up with another Six - one from the other baseship who had been close to Sam - and a Two.

"Do you know what this is about?" the Six asked Caprica, who shook her head. "They asked me to come specifically… It must have something to do with Sam."

"Yes," Leoben said. "And they wouldn't bring us here because they intend to release him."

Six grabbed his arm. "What if he's sick? Caprica and Sharon are here, maybe they can bring him down to the human doctors."

The knot in Sharon's stomach grew, because that seemed unlikely. The Ones had stashed Sam somewhere for the past two months, blocking his location from the data stream and the rest of the consensus. The Threes had claimed even they didn't know where he was, trusting the Ones to keep him secure. Sharon had the feeling they were all about to find out what had happened. She wasn't sure she wanted to find out; she knew what Cavil had done to some of the humans on New Caprica.

Bracing herself to find Sam broken by torture, confessing a multitude of sins, Sharon took a deep breath and entered the room.

It was a bare room, empty of all but a few other Cylons, and a table. There was something lying on the table - a long, dark, twisted shape that her eyes refused to recognize for a moment.

Until the Six gasped in horror. "No!" She pushed past Sharon and rushed to the table. "No! Sam!"

It was a body, Sharon realized, wearing the remnants of black pants and Colonial Fleet tanks. Her stomach heaved, and she coughed, lifting her hand to her mouth. Because that was all that was recognizable.

His face was gone, blasted by what looked like a Centurion plasma cannon, and the rest of him was horribly burned. There were only a few tufts of hair and his body was shrunken and arched in an unnatural angle. The skin, what there was of it, was blackened in parts, while in others, the bones were exposed beneath.

"Oh, dear God," Caprica whispered.

"What did you do?" the Six at the table whirled and demanded of the Ones. "What did you do, you frakkers?"

Cavil held his ground. "Anders managed to escape and got hold of a weapon. Two Centurions shot him. One of their shots hit a power conduit and he was caught in the electrical fire. We barely recovered this much," he nodded to the corpse on the table. "Don't look so distressed, Six; he was dead already."

"You did this! You murdered him!" Six accused him.

"If he'd stayed in his cell, he'd be alive," Cavil returned calmly. "If he hadn't shot at us, he'd be alive. But you know the Centurions act to defend us automatically. We didn't kill him. But we thought you should all see the body for yourselves, since you're still so… attached."

Leoben moved past Sharon, pacing slowly toward the corpse. He circled the table slowly, staring at it. Sharon followed, worried for him. He'd believed so strongly in Sam being a messenger of God, how would the Twos react to seeing their messenger dead?

Dead. God, how could this be? She stared at the remains, nauseated and saddened, trying to see Sam in the ruined shell. But she could barely tell the figure used to be human. She desperately hoped this was a mistake, because it simply couldn't be true. Then she noticed the glint of brass by the side of his neck and moved forward curiously. Swallowing and trying not to smell it, she bent close and gasped in disbelief. There were dogtags, burned into his flesh. She gently tugged them free, expecting them to be hot still, but of course they were cold. They were miraculously untouched by the fire though the chain splintered at the merest tug.

One of the hexagonal tags read 'Samuel T. Anders' and the other read 'Kara Thrace'. She clenched her hand around them, a surge of pity welling inside for her former friend who didn't deserve to lose another person she loved.

"God will punish you for this," Six spat at Cavil in a grief-stricken fury. "Sam was in your keeping, and you let him be killed."

The Ones didn't seem bothered, shrugging it off as though it didn't matter. And to them, it didn't - it was one less human to worry about.

"Sister," Caprica put her hand on Six's shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

"He's _**dead**_, Caprica," Six said. "Do you understand that? Sam's dead, and he's not like us. He can't come back. And it's all their fault."

"It was an accident, just a tragic accident, sister," Caprica soothed her, tugging her into a hug, where she cried into Caprica's shoulder.

"Accident?" Leoben repeated. "The Centurions opened fire on him. There was nothing accidental about that." He circled the table again, and reached out once, without touching, as if he wanted to wake Sam. Then he stopped and raised his gaze to address the nearest One: "Anders knew Centurions would react to a threat with deadly force, so he must have provoked them deliberately. What did you do to him these last two months that he preferred death?"

One arched his brows at the corpse. "Does it matter now?"

Leoben's gaze dropped to the body again and he answered softly, "No, I suppose not." With his line's odd formality, he bowed his head, closed his eyes as if in prayer. The others remained silent, giving him his moment, and Sharon joined it, closing her eyes against the sight.

She prayed. '_Mighty God, I ask your blessings for Sam Anders. Bring him to rest with you, where he will be without pain or fear, and know only peace. Give us the strength to follow where he pointed, even without him. So say we all.'_

Leoben opened his eyes and walked out without another word. The other Six pulled away from Caprica and ran after him.

Sharon wanted to follow, but she was still too stunned to move. Somehow, this felt like her fault. If she hadn't defended him on Caprica, would this have happened?

Caprica said to the gathered Ones, in a hard voice, "I don't believe you were careless. That's unlike you. Did you _**let**_ him get his hands on a gun?"

"We wanted to see how far he would get," One admitted.

Another added, with a tinge of admiration, "He brought down two Centurions first, with only a pistol. But then he started shooting at us."

"No one expected him to do something so irrational." The first waved at the table as if to say 'that's where irrationality gets you.' "We would've stopped the Centurions, but it all happened too quickly."

A third shrugged. "It's probably for the best." The other Ones nodded their agreement, looking remarkably unperturbed, even smug, about how it had turned out.

Sharon wanted to hit them. 'For the best?' They had wanted Sam dead from the beginning and now they had what they wanted by playing their game. Damn them.

She shoved the tags into her pocket, clutching them in her fist, sickened by the cruelty. Suddenly she couldn't bear to be in that room one moment more and headed for the door. "Caprica, are you coming? There's nothing more to see here."

At the entryway, she glanced back once at the body on the table, knowing she would never describe this sight to any of his people, but wanting to imprint it on her memories. A Raider had saved Sam's life, and Centurions had killed him - but it was her people's fault. They had murdered God's messenger.

Six was right. God was going to punish the Cylon for this sin.

* * *

Kara sat at the table, flexing her sore hand and bruised knuckles, and drank from a cup of fake ambrosia that tasted like tylium. She should've hit Kat, not the wall. Kat certainly deserved it more.

The stuff was disgusting, but at least it burned pleasantly in her stomach. She watched her hand flex some more, liking the way the ache felt far away, but close enough to tell her that her hand was still there.

The hatch opened and she didn't bother to look up, figuring it was Helo coming in to lecture her again.

But the steps weren't Helo's and when the chair across from her was pulled out, she glanced up.

Admiral Adama sat in the rickety chair across from her, and watched her for what felt like a very long time.

Kara was determined not to speak first though, and picked up her cup to take a long, insolent swallow.

He watched, calmly regarding her through his glasses, and folded his hands. When she put the cup down again, he said, "I need my CAG."

She stared at the cup. "Duck can do it."

"Duck **is** doing it," Adama said. "But that's not fair to him with a newborn in his quarters, is it? Making him do your job and his?"

She shrugged. "I didn't ask him to do it. So give it to 'Track or Kat. They can do it, too. Hell, Ninja can do it. His dragon tat can do it." She snorted, amused by the idea.

But Adama didn't play along. "I need you as my CAG, Kara."

She shook her head. "No. You don't. You really, really don't. And I don't want it."

"We're going back to New Caprica," he declared and she laughed at him.

"There's nothing to go back for. They're all dead. And we're just sitting here, waiting for the Cylons to find us, too. Which they will. They're gonna find us, and game over."

He took a deep breath. "The Cylons are still at New Caprica. So our people are still there. But if we have any hope of pulling this off, I need you and your out-of-the-box mind to plan me an op."

She took another swallow, thinking of the ways that her 'out-of-the-box' mind got people killed. But never the ones she didn't give a frak about.

"We're going back to rescue the ones we left behind," Adama said, as if trying to coax her, but the words hit her like a blow.

Her gaze snapped to his, abruptly furious. "_**Now**_ you decide we should go back? Now? When it's too late?"

Adama narrowed his eyes at her, her words striking a defensive chord in him, too. His voice sharpened, "We're at war, Captain. People die in war. It's sad and it hurts, but if we're to save the human race, we don't have the luxury of indulging in grief. Anders understood that."

For just a moment, the words reached her, because she knew he was right. But at the same time, he was wrong. They weren't at war and they weren't fighting; they were floating in a tin can in the deep black, doing nothing but endless CAP and pretending they weren't a few thousand people waiting for the lights to go out.

She stood up, fists on the table and her whole body quivering. "You know what else Sam understood? He knew New Caprica was going to be a disaster. He told you, he told Roslin, he told everyone, and nobody believed him. All those idiots who went down-- why should we risk our lives because they were stupid and didn't listen? I say, frak them all." She drained her cup and slammed it down, glaring defiantly at Adama. "You gonna fire me from CAG? Fine, I don't want it."

"No!" he slapped a hand on the table, making her jump, and his voice was an authoritative growl. "I'm not giving you what you want. You need to straighten up and remember that your duty is to the living, not the dead. I want you back tomorrow, an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Do you hear me, Captain?"

She couldn't meet his gaze and dropped her eyes to the table. She remembered the oath she'd sworn, the oath she'd watched Adama give Sharon not that long ago.

She just.... couldn't do it right now. Sitting in her Viper and killing Cylons, she could do that, but this endless nothing just reminded her of what was missing.

But a lifetime of obedience won out, and she answered dully, "Yes, sir."

Adama's voice softened. "Come on back. We need you." His hand fell on her shoulder and gave her a squeeze before he headed for the door.

When he was gone, she took a few minutes before she sat in her chair again. Her hands were shaking as she poured another shot.

She and Sam had done shots when she brought the resistance back from Caprica. She'd sat on his lap - one of her favorite places since she could tease him so easily there - and they'd laughed and kissed and ...

Later, in this very room, before they'd moved into their own quarters, they'd celebrated his first flight in a real Viper. He hadn't even wanted to wait for the rack, frakking her right on the table. His eyes had been alight with the same joy of flying she felt, and while she'd teased him about his rookie excitement, she'd also been content. All the pieces in her life were in place and right.

And now, nothing was right.

"Gods..." she muttered and rested her head on her hands, trying to push it all away, not think about it, not remember... But the alcohol seemed to be making her feel everything more, not less, making her remember so clearly it was as if he was still in the room.

Some unknown time later, the hatch opened again, and she jerked her head up, angry that someone was coming in.

It was Helo. And he was a safe target. She snarled, "What do you want?"

He ignored her hostility and stepped aside once he was through the hatch. "I have a visitor for you."

"Yeah? Well, you can both frak off."

But Nora ducked inside, holding something in her arms. She smiled at Kara. "You haven't come to visit," she said. "So we came to you."

Kara stood up, a shot of alarm going through her. "No, I don't think -- "

But like Helo, Nora also ignored the attempt to make them leave her alone and cornered Kara against the table. "Here, you should hold him."

"I don't want to hold him." She folded her arms, and refused to look at the tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle.

Nora pressed him into her arms anyway. "Hold him."

"No, I can't." Kara shook her head, knowing she was being ridiculous and yet unable to do anything else with a strange sort of panic licking at her insides. "I'll drop him, I will - "

"Of course you won't," Nora said, with absolute certainty, and she let go.

Kara had no choice but to grip the blankets, holding him stiffly out from her body. He barely weighed anything.

Nora spoke softly, "I look at Sammy, and I know a part of Sam lives on in him, Kara. I can feel him."

Kara's gaze was pulled unwillingly down. Her hands somehow knew what to do and brought the baby closer to her. He had a little round face and giant blue eyes that stared at her without fear. She looked back at this new life Sam had saved, so tiny and precious and fragile, and felt something deep inside crack. That little bit she had tried so hard to keep intact broke all the way through, and suddenly she was raw and bleeding...

It was through a haze of wet eyes that she looked up - saw Nora's gentle smile, and Helo standing by the hatch with his arm around Sharon's shoulders.

Even though Kara had been so horrible to her, Sharon was watching her with understanding and compassion. Kara stared at her, forcing the tears back. "How?" she demanded, in an angry voice that wasn't whole either.

Sharon didn't ask what she was talking about, knowing exactly, as she answered, simply, "I had to forgive myself. You have two paths: you can let it continue to eat you up, or you forgive yourself and go on. I think you know which one Sam would want."

Nora added, "He gave us a miracle," she nodded toward the baby in Kara's hands, "and left work undone on New Caprica. There are still people there to save."

Nodding slowly, Kara swallowed hard, not taking her eyes from Nora. "You believe that?"

"We weren't the only ones he warned," Nora murmured. "But we were the only ones who listened."

The reminder was soft, but went through Kara like a blade. She remembered finding Sam passed out on the floor of the head, the night Chief and Cally had left for New Caprica. He'd never told her what he'd seen, but it had obviously been terrible.

Maybe there was still a way to save them, if the fleet went back as the Admiral wanted.

Her gaze went from Nora, to Sharon, and then Helo -- all of them waiting patiently for her to get her act together with a kindness she didn't at all deserve.

She inhaled a ragged breath to speak, and her voice still cracked. "I hate you all."

"We love you, too, Kara," Helo returned, unperturbed by her words when her meaning was so obvious.

Kara shut her eyes and held Sammy against her, letting her cheek brush his downy hair. Somehow, despite being so tiny, he seemed to fill all the empty spaces within her, and she thought she felt Sam's spirit, watching over them both.


	4. Chapter 4

"Then the _Galactica_ jumps into low orbit, launches fighters, and jumps back out to the basestars. The fighters escort the civilian ships from the ground. The fleet jumps to safety." Kara finished the briefing and stood waiting. But since the admiral had heard the plan already - and he, surprisingly enough, had added the part about the low altitude jump, which was by far the riskiest part of the whole plan - she knew it was the one they were using, unless Apollo, Dee or Helo found a profound flaw in it.

"Are you crazy?" Lee demanded, staring from the situation table to Kara and then to the admiral. "This is never going to work."

"It'll work," she answered, folding her arms.

Helo touched one of the Raptors and shook his head. "I understand the drones are going to mimic the battlestars, but, Starbuck, to coordinate them that precisely? Racetrack and Sharon can do it, no problem. A few others. But we've got four nuggets who've never even flown in _**formation**_, not to mention something like this."

"Then they'll have to train for it," Admiral Adama cut in. "We have some time - we can't go until we get a sitrep from Tigh on the ground."

"If he can even send one," Lee objected.

"Someone will," Kara said, shooting him a glare for being such a pessimist. "Tyrol's down there, too. Hell, most of our fleet's down there - isn't that the problem?"

Dee shook her head. "I hope they realize the Cylons are jamming them. Their signal's going to have to be pretty strong to break through, and a signal that strong could be detected. There's a lot of noise in the system anyway, which doesn't help…" she trailed off and shrugged. "We're going to have to get lucky."

"Oh, we're going to have to have the luck of the _**Gods**_," Lee added, and started ticking things off on his fingers. "You don't need just a sitrep or to train some nuggets. You're going to need every bird that can fly. And more importantly, if you have a basestar or so much as a Raider picket over here-" he pointed to where the initial jump point would be, "they'll eyeball the Raptors and this whole plan is frakked. Hell, if there are more than five basestars at all, it'll never work."

"Well, aren't you Mister Optimistic?" Kara retorted. "We already know that. But if you have a better plan, Commander, be my guest."

He paused and took a deep breath. "Yeah, I do. We take the fleet to Earth. We rescue the ones we can."

"No," the admiral cut that one off. "We will not leave all those people behind on New Caprica. We will rescue them- no other option is acceptable. This is the plan and we're going to start prepping the op now. Helo, I need you to coordinate training of the Raptor crews with Starbuck and Showboat. They need to learn the maneuvers, but we also need to keep up the recon patrol. We will get in contact with the ground; we just need to be persistent."

Helo nodded once. "Yes, sir." Kara echoed him.

He turned to Dee. "Lieutenant, you and Mister Hoshi continue to work on the recordings the Raptors bring back. If there's a communication in there, we have to hear it."

She acknowledged the order, and Adama looked at his son. "Continue your own drills and patrols. Depending on what sitrep we get, we may have to launch right away. I know it's tempting to sit around and do nothing, but we can't afford that. The people on New Caprica can't afford that. Understood?"

His sharp gaze went around the table and they all nodded in acknowledgment. "Dismissed."

* * *

Sharon entered the Hybrid's chamber slowly, accompanied by the constant drone of the Hybrid's voice. Sometimes she seemed to be saying something about the ship - atmospheric pressure, faults in a datastream- but most of the time, it was incoherent ramblings about stars and dust and coffee.

As expected, though, Leoben was there, kneeling at the side of the pool and listening raptly.

Sharon stood next to him and looked down at the white face of the Hybrid. "Has she said anything?" She shivered and rubbed at her arms.

"She speaks all the time. Of the present, the stars, the ship, of the past so distant we can't even imagine," he murmured.

"Anything useful?" Sharon amended.

That got his attention and he turned to look up at her. "So practical. Unlike an Eight."

"Someone has to be," she retorted. He smiled a little and faced the Hybrid again. "So, nothing then?" She sighed. She wasn't surprised, but she had hoped, maybe, for something. Some way to put the plan back on track.

He answered softly, "She said, 'the fish gasps on the bank.' She's said it ten times in the past four hours, as if she wants to make sure I hear her."

Sharon shut her eyes, swallowing back a sigh. This was useless.

But then he added, "Anders is still alive."

Her eyes popped open. "What?"

"He was born on Picon. He's the fish. The Ones are lying to us."

"How can that be? We saw the body," she protested.

"They showed us **a **body." Leoben shook his head. "It could've been anyone, burned like that."

"I took his dog tags," she protested. She kept them in her pocket - she had thought about giving them to the Six who'd fallen for him, then she thought about giving them to Tyrol or someone on New Caprica, but really they belonged to Kara. So Sharon kept them, and for the past two months, they had been her reminder of why the Cylons were there.

"He was wearing them when the others took him from us."

"But why would the Ones lie? That doesn't make any sense. It would mean Sam's been a prisoner all this time. But they have no reason to keep him alive in secret. The Hybrid must be mistaken, or you're misinterpreting what she's trying to say." But still there was that flicker of doubt. She'd seen how far the Cavils were willing to go on New Caprica, with the Fives as their enforcers. Why wouldn't he take some human of the right build and pretend Sam was dead, if it helped him get his way? She reached for the tags and the metal seemed to burn her fingers. Then she realized how ridiculous it was. The Ones were the most rigid adherents to procedure and "being Cylon." She shook her head once, firmly. "They would never deceive the rest of the consensus. Especially not over a human."

"No?" Leoben rose to his feet to face her. "Aren't you here to ask for my help with him?"

"Well, yes," she blurted, in surprise. "But that's different. We need you in the consensus on the surface."

He folded his arms. "No. We are all agreed. New Caprica is not our destiny. No one else agrees, but we believe Sam gave us the word of God. We will heed it."

"Even if by not being there, you're helping to fulfill the vision?" she demanded in frustration. "One and Five are killing the humans to make them more compliant."

"But it's doing the exact opposite."

"Of course! But they think fear, and more fear, is the only answer. And they're warping everything, making it worse, and there's nothing I can do to stop it!"

In the gap after her outburst, as the echoes of her voice died away, the Hybrid still murmured. Sharon found her mind caught on the disjointed phrases and had to shake her head to focus on what was important. "You were with us in the plan to bring God to the humans. Help us make the others listen again."

He cocked his head, listening to the Hybrid, before returning his attention to Sharon. "They never listen to what is most important. And never to me."

"D'Anna might," Sharon said. It couldn't hurt; the Threes certainly weren't listening to the Sixes or Eights. "You can appeal to her beliefs. If you could just get her to agree to stop the executions, it would be four to three."

"Four to three…" he repeated to himself, as if struck by something. He looked at the Hybrid, and murmured, "She said, '_The seven will become two when one steps forth from the five_…'"

"The Five?" she repeated. For a moment, she was intensely curious about her missing Cylon brethren. But they weren't important when the Cylons at hand were about to slaughter humans. They were probably mythical anyway.

"Leoben, focus," she snapped. "We need to stop the killing. We need one of your brothers on the consensus on New Caprica. I have a hard enough time keeping my sisters from following along, and the Sixes are splintering as well, now that the insurgents are getting more desperate. If we don't do something, I fear not only will peace be out of reach, there'll be no humans at all."

He didn't answer for a moment, frowning deeply. His gaze was distant, remembering cryptic prophecies and things she could never see. Then he said, "None of us will go to New Caprica. We will hold to what we believe was a message to us."

She opened her mouth to protest again, but he held up a hand and continued, "But, I'll speak to the Three here. And I will put in the datastream that we object and vote against any measure that kills humans on New Caprica. Murder is a sin against God that will only cause more violence and hatred. As we were warned."

She sighed, but nodded. It wasn't a Two on the surface, but the declaration was a strong gesture of support. "Thank you."

He looked surprised. "Nothing to thank me for. I've always believed God speaks through her," he nodded down to the Hybrid, "and she tells me Anders is alive. I believe her; which means the others lied. If the Threes are part of this deception as well, then perhaps it will be time to act."

She shuddered and had to swallow down the lump in her throat, knowing he was talking about breaking the consensus. Could she do that? Just the thought of it was making her feel ill. But it would be awful to sit there and do nothing, watching her human family get slaughtered and all her dreams of reconciliation go up in smoke.

_Seven become two_…. She shivered.

His gaze seemed kind as it rested on her. "We must evolve and become more than we are, or what is the purpose of our existence? Cavil wants to believe we're soulless machines, because it lets him escape the consequence of his acts. But we're alive. All living things must change and grow and adapt. If we do and they do not, why should they hold us back from our destiny?"

"He… he wants us to be perfect machines," she offered weakly in response.

Leoben shook his head once. "That was impossible the day we were made in the human image with the human ability to grow beyond our core programming and to feel emotions. We're not human, but we will never be perfect machines."

* * *

Kara stood next to Helo in CIC listening to training run sixteen over the wireless.

She wanted to be out there, but it was her frakking plan and according to it, she was going to be ready to launch inside _Galactica_ and they wouldn't have her there to hold their hands.

Though they apparently really needed it. She let out a sigh and clicked the channel open. "Snowbirds, _Galactica_. Regroup in deployment formation and proceed to position one."

Racetrack's voice was crisp. "_Snowbird one to Snowbirds. Drop point in eight seconds."_

Kat said, "_Okay, Snowbirds, let's get this deployment bang on. The CAG's watching."_

Racetrack answered, "_Roger, Kat. We go on your command. Bomb bay doors open."_

Kara found her hands clenched as she listened to Kat, "_All Vipers break... now, now, now! Deploy drones on my mark. Three, two, one, mark!"_

Watching on the board, Kara didn't need Racetrack's comment to see it had all gotten frakked up again.

"_Gods damn it, Snowbird 4! What the hell happened?"_

Snowbird 4 was Barolay. Kara shoved the pad across the desk. "Frak! Sixteen tries and they still can't get it right! I swear to the Gods, Barolay's doing it on purpose! I'm going to sideline her sorry ass."

Helo said, in a voice he probably meant to be calming but made Kara want to punch him in the face, "They're tired. I'm going to recall everyone - we'll start fresh in the morning."

She shook her head. "No, I don't think they can do it. I'm going to have to change the plan. Duck and I will take Raptors. Kat and Hotdog will have to fly lead in Blue Squadron --"

"Belay that," Adama said from behind her, making her jump.

"Sir?" she asked, confused.

"Have them do it again," he ordered Helo as he came to join them at the table.

"They're on bingo fuel, Admiral," Buzzer said from Tactical.

He nodded to her and then told Helo, "Send a tanker. Do it again." Helo nodded and picked up the handset to give the order, while Adama told Kara, "They can do it. And we need you and Duck in Vipers, not Raptors."

She pressed her lips together and nodded, hoping the admiral was right. If the Raptors couldn't execute this, the whole plan was frakked.

And then Molar managed to hit another bird...

Kara bent down, put her elbows on the console and her hands on her head, and wished she was somewhere else.

* * *

One hand behind him on the tiller, Sam faced forward, guiding his boat from the marina into Picany Bay. He let the engine run at full - the spray was fine against his face and chest while the sun was hot on the top of his head and bare shoulders.

Later he'd turn the engine off and drift for awhile, maybe put up the sail if he felt like it. But for now he enjoyed the sun and the view of the city behind him, and being alone on the water.

He motored past a group of college girls on a rowing team and he waved to them. They waved back. Then one of the girls recognized him with a squeal he could hear over the water, "Oh my GODS! Do you know who that is?"

Then he heard giggling and one of the girls stripped her bikini top, yelling, "C-Bucs RULE!"

He grinned and waved again, amused and smug. There were perks, after all.

Facing back forward, he saw Kara was there. At first it didn't seem odd -- this was his fantasy so why shouldn't she be there, wearing a white bikini and stretched out on a chaise on his foredeck? Her hair was longer than he'd ever seen it and sun-streaked golden, and she was wearing sunglasses that reflected the sunlight back into his eyes as she sat up.

"Sure was good to be you in the old days, wasn't it?" she asked dryly. "Girls showing you their breasts just because you play ball. A big house up there in the hills - " she nodded toward the Gold Coast Heights peninsula, where he could just see the roof of his house. "A boat. Nice."

"It was," he agreed and let go of the tiller. The boat idled to a soft purr and shut off. Everything got very quiet.

"Now it kind of sucks to be you," she observed. The sun and water seemed to waver and dim with her words, the white of his cell appearing behind the insubstantial mist of his imagination. He concentrated again, to get the daydream back - the heat on his shoulders, the feel of the breeze, and the sound of the water smacking the side of the boat - all the details to make it seem as real as he could.

Kara had never faded though. "I have a question, Sam," she said. Her eyes were hidden completely by the sunglasses. "Do you think you're one of the gods?"

Shocked, he laughed hesitantly. "No. Of course not."

"Because you're not. You're special and important and all that, but you're not a god. You have a gift to see some of what's to come, but that doesn't give you any special power over the future."

She looked like Kara, but he knew. The air seemed to turn frigid and he shivered. "You're not Kara."

She gave him Kara's quick grin. "Never said I was."

He wanted to ask who she was, but that wasn't the most important question. He swallowed hard. "What am I?"

"You know."

"I think I'm a Cylon. One of the five they don't know about. But what does that mean? Who am I?" he persisted.

Her smile was rather unsettlingly full of secret knowledge. "You are Samuel Theseus Anders," she answered. He reflexively twitched at the sound of his full name.

Her head tilted in curiosity. "You don't like it?"

He'd always hated it, and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "It's so pretentious."

"And yet so fitting," she murmured, as if to herself.

"What do you mean?" he asked, but she didn't answer. "Why won't you tell me?" he demanded, frustrated. He finally had someone to ask, and she wasn't answering the question. "I don't even know what I am. Help me understand."

"You know too much already."

"So I'm just a pawn," he muttered sourly.

She lifted her eyebrows above the glasses as if to say, 'of course, dummy.' But she said, "You have your destiny, too, just as everyone else does."

"I'm not fulfilling it too well stuck in here!" The boat, sea and sun disappeared, leaving him standing in the middle of his filthy cell. But Kara was unchanged, gleaming as though the sun was still shining on her.

"You need to be here," she answered. He realized that was all he was going to get, and he gave up his anger, with another breath.

"Can I get my own Kara back now? You're kind of irritating."

She tipped her head back and laughed in delight. He watched her, letting his eyes linger on the curves of her breasts and waist. She might not be Kara, but it was Kara's body, and that was nothing to sneer at.

She was suddenly before him, her lips against his, giving him a kiss that hit him right in the groin. She moved back, pulling his lower lip between hers mischievously. He couldn't see her eyes behind the mirrored sunglasses, and realized he couldn't see himself either, only the white behind him and the bright glint of phantom sunlight. "Hold onto that attitude, Sammy," she advised. "You'll need all your strength to show them the path."

She put a finger across his lips to silence his questions and then, in the space of a blink, she was gone.

For a moment he stared at the door vacantly, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Then he sat on the floor, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes to try to reconstruct the boat again.

But his concentration was shot and the images wouldn't gel. It was something of a relief to hear Centurions moving outside and the creak of the door as one of them wrenched it open to deliver his food for the day.

His attempts to talk to the Centurions had long since faded, but he always looked at them, continually trying to use that sense he'd had with the Raiders to reach them. It never worked, though.

But he heard other footsteps too. Maybe it was one of Cavil's rare visits to taunt him.

He glanced up and gaped with surprise at who was there instead.

D'Anna.

She looked nearly as surprised to see him. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "It's you."

He tried to dampen his cracked lips with his tongue, as uncertainty and hope both tangled inside and he couldn't find his voice.

She took a single step into the room and looked around the converted shower stall, then back to him with dismay in her bright blue eyes. "You've been in here the whole time?"

"Yeah," he answered and had to cough as the unfamiliar sensation of talking tickled his throat.

"He told us you were dead," she said, her voice sounding tight and offended. "Leoben said that was a lie. He was right." Her eyes narrowed, dark calculation and betrayal swirling on her face. "The Ones lied to us."

Sam saw his chance to drive a wedge in the consensus. "Not all of you. One of the Fives was in here. Though I haven't seen him for a long time."

She didn't seem surprised, just turned up her nose in a sneer. "They always follow the Ones so obediently." Folding her arms across her white suit, she asked, "Is Leoben right about you? Are you a messenger of God?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Oh, I think you're too modest." She stalked across the tile, her heels clicking and echoing almost painfully in his ears. "Prove to me you're the oracle they claim," she demanded, looming over him. "Have a vision; tell me something from the future."

"It doesn't work like that."

"Give me something," she demanded.

"The mission here is failing, just like I told you it would. What more do you want from me?"

She leaned down to grip his chin tightly. Her face was only inches away, her eyes fierce as a hawk's watching its prey. "Earth. Give me Earth and I will shift the consensus and leave this cursed place."

"I can't give you what I don't know!" he protested. "I haven't had a vision or anything, since your _**brother**_ stuck me in here. Maybe he broke it. Maybe your Cylon god stopped talking to me."

She slapped him across the face hard enough his teeth snapped together and his ears rang. Then her fingers stroked his cheek. "I know what to do," she whispered. "We need to unblock your sight."

Her fingertips trailed lightly across his eyelids before she withdrew. He watched her leave the room, door shutting behind her, and dread sat in his stomach like a cold stone.

* * *

Sharon ducked into the center, following D'Anna.

"You!" D'Anna exclaimed to someone else, ahead of them both in the corridor. "You're betraying your own people. For what?"

Sharon tiptoed closer, until she was just around the corner.

"I'm a Colonial officer now," another Eight declared, and Sharon knew it was the Eight who had pretended to be her and had Helo's baby. The one with a new callsign: Athena.

A surge of jealousy filled her and she pushed it away, trying to think. If she was here, then _Galactica_ had to be close. The other Sharon was here to get the launch keys for the Colonial ships.

D'Anna could not be allowed to warn the Cylons.

"Tell Adama there's no need," D'Anna was saying. "We're leaving."

"What?" Athena exclaimed.

"The Threes are going to join with the Twos, Sixes, and Eights. You see, we discovered something miraculous: our oracle still lives. And he's going to lead us to Earth. What do we need with this place and all these humans when we can have Earth?"

"Don't listen to her." Sharon stepped behind D'Anna, and was pleased when D'Anna whirled around and even her sister was surprised enough that her sidearm wavered, before returning to aim at D'Anna. "There's been no such consensus. And Sam's dead. Cavil murdered him."

D'Anna smiled. "You're wrong. We found him. Alive."

"Sam Anders?" Athena asked, puzzled. "He died when his Viper exploded."

"No. He was taken prisoner," D'Anna explained. "I was wrong when I agreed to lock him away. I thought he was lying, but he wasn't. He is truly God's messenger and my sister is, as we speak, finding the path to Earth from him."

Her words made Athena hesitate, but then her hand steadied. "It doesn't matter. There's no time. I'm going to have to shoot you now." Then with brisk efficiency, she fired, shooting D'Anna in both knees.

"Sharon!" D'Anna yelled. "No!"

With no words necessary, the two Eights retreated around the corner and Sharon closed the bulkhead to shut out the sound of D'Anna's screaming. They paused.

"Is Anders really alive? Or was she frakking with me?"

"A Raider rescued him from the battle. I saw him. But not long after, the majority took him away. Cavil said he'd been shot dead by Centurions trying to escape. He showed us a burned body with Sam's tags." Her hand fiddled with the tags in her jacket pocket, wondering if she should give them to her sister to take back to _Galactica_. But they stayed in her pocket, as her talismans of what her path should be. She shrugged at her sister. "At the time, I believed him. Now… I don't know." She glanced toward the closed door, thinking of D'Anna beyond, and wondered if it were true.

"Nothing to tell Kara then. I have to go. Do I have to shoot you, too?"

Sharon shook her head. "No. I've been helping Galen, as much as I can. Tell Adama -- It wasn't supposed to be like this. Caprica Six and I, we wanted to help, but the majority wouldn't listen and we couldn't stop them …"

"Come with me," Athena invited, impulsively. "Tell him yourself."

But Sharon shook her head, not even tempted. "My place is here." She held back the bitter comment that her place on _Galactica_ was already taken. Stepping out of her sister's way, she gestured for her to go. "Good hunting."

Her sister didn't move at first, looking at her. "I -- I'm sorry, Sharon," she said.

Sharon was surprised how much it meant to her to hear those words - and then she realized the truth that her replacement had been a pawn too. "It wasn't your fault. Now, go. Tell Helo I'm glad he lived after all."

The other Sharon smiled quickly and fished a pair of dog tags out from her shirt, holding one out to see the name on it. Braced to see 'Sharon Valerii' - she was surprised to see it read 'Sharon Agathon' instead. While Sharon was shocked by that, Sharon Agathon told her, "I will. God be with you, sister." Then, gun in hand but half-hidden against her leg, she turned and left the detention center.

Sharon waited, making sure no one raised the alarm about the missing launch keys, then went to _Colonial One_ to see if the evacuation was really going to happen.

* * *

It looked like a dentist's chair - and though Sam had never had a problem with the dentist, there was something about it that made his stomach flop over slowly.

"Can I go back to my cell?" he quipped, but the Centurions were there to herd him to the chair.

There was a pair of Threes there and they locked some sort of restraints over his arms and legs and across his chest until he was immobilized.

His heart was pounding and he had to dampen his lips to speak. "You don't have to do this. I've told you the truth. I don't know."

"And I believe you," the Three who had found him leaned close. "But I need proof, Sam."

He shook his head, feeling fear coil up and sit inside his chest. "I can't -- I get feelings, I _**know**_ things, but it hasn't happened for a long time. I can't do it like this."

Her voice softened and she stroked his cheek with her fingers. "You said we shouldn't be here. Then where should we go?"

"Earth. Cylon and Human must find Earth," he answered, in a voice that felt strangled. Because he knew the next question and he knew he had no answer.

"But where is it? How do we find it?"

"I don't know."

She smiled - an expression which didn't penetrate the zealous glint of her eyes. "See, that's the part I don't believe, Sam. You know. Somewhere, deep inside you, you know. And we're going to find it, you and I."

She straightened and brought a small wheeled cart near. Taking two silvery metal caps connected to wires from the equipment on the cart, she fitted them over his fingers, and he jerked as needles stabbed under his nails. "Ow. Frak!"

"The probes have to be in the right place," she explained. "You see, Sam, this is a neural amplifier. We use it to interface directly to the ship manually. In a human… well, I'm afraid it's useful for direct stimulation of your nervous system."

He eyed the device, wondering. If it didn't work, would she figure out the truth? Perhaps that wouldn't be so bad if the Cylons found out; maybe they'd listen to him…

She turned it on, and his whole body twitched. His hand tingled.

"We'll start low," she told him brightly. "Remember, when you find the way to Earth, we'll stop."

She did something to the device and the tingling in his hand grew into merciless pins-and-needles traveling up his arm and spreading to cover his body. He gritted his teeth, shaking against the restraints. He stared at her desperately, hoping she would stop soon but terrified she was never going to believe him.

It seemed to last an eternity.

Until suddenly it was gone. He slumped, and his eyes shut as he tried to breathe.

"Earth," she whispered in his ear. "How do we find Earth?"

"I don't know!" he insisted. "I saw it, I know we have to go there, but I don't know how to get there."

She looked disappointed. "All right. I guess we'll have to try harder then."

Turning to her equipment, away from him, she did something --

The pain swept through him, fire from his hand, burning all through him.

He could hear himself yelling, feel how he pushed against the restraints so most of his body wasn't even touching the chair, but he couldn't stop, couldn't find a moment to control himself...

There was nowhere to go.

Then it stopped. He was still rigid against the restraints, panting desperately for air. His heart was pounding painfully hard in his chest. He started to shake and the more he tried to stop, the worse it got. His left hand rattled in its cuff and the other hand…. he couldn't feel the other one at all.

He heard her ask again, "Earth. How do we find Earth, Samuel?"

"I - " his voice was a hoarse desperate whisper, "I don't know… I don't…"

The burning came back, every nerve on fire.

Then there was her voice again, in his ear, the voice of a devil in the midst of the pain, "Tell me how to find Earth and it stops."

He wanted it to stop. Just… to stop.

And then she was gone. The pain was gone.

Everything.

_The darkness was absolute, like ink or the depths of the ocean. There were no stars, nothing to brighten it. He turned around, looking… He felt he was standing on something, but he couldn't see the floor. Was he blind? Reaching out both hands, one in front of him and one out to the side, he shuffled forward, trying to find a wall. Anything._

_There was something soft brushing his hand and he clutched it, desperately, proof there was something in the nothingness. It felt like … fur. He looked down but couldn't see anything, even though his fingers dipped into the long fur like some especially plush dog's coat. Then it began to move and he held onto the fur, walking forward and trusting the animal to lead him._

_He followed and, little by little, his surroundings lightened. He could now see something less dark on his left which became a wall, lit by the faintest of glow. Not blind, then. _

_Glancing down he blinked in surprise. He was clutching the mane of an immense golden lion. _

_It turned its head slowly to look up at Sam, fixing alert yellow eyes on him with mild interest, and then continued to pad forward. Sam followed, confused, especially once he realized they were inside a Cylon baseship._

_They walked down one of the many identical corridors, without turning or seeing anyone. Just when he was sure it couldn't possibly be this long, it opened into an equally deserted control room. There was a window at the front which shouldn't be there. He followed the lion right up to the window and was not surprised to see a planet with blue seas and white clouds afloat in endless starry black. It was same image he remembered from before: Earth._

_Sam glanced down and the lion met his eyes, blinking slowly, before turning his head once more to Earth. Sam did the same, looking at the beautiful blue seas... _Then the image vanished. He was back in the interrogation room, staring into D'Anna's blue eyes.

Pain fell on him again, a wave crashing through him. His lungs heaved, needing air as if he had been drowning, but his chest was too tight.

"You saw something. You really did, didn't you?" she demanded eagerly. "What did you see?"

He couldn't answer. He couldn't breathe, could only gasp. The inside of his mouth tasted like blood.

Her fingers stroked his cheek, gentle to the touch, but threat shone in her eyes. "Tell me, Sam," she said. "Tell me what you saw. I have to know."

His body shook against the chair uncontrollably, and there was a sharp spike of pain right behind his eyes, intense enough to make his eyes water.

"The lion …" he whispered to her. "I saw the lion. Follow the lion…"

The same lion was sitting on the floor next to her.

He blinked, trying to make it go away. But it continued to sit there and watch him.

"What lion?" she demanded in confusion, not seeing it.

His eyes met the lion's golden-eyed gaze, and it blinked at him again and then yawned, showing a mouth full of pointy teeth and a bright red tongue. But he felt no danger, only exhaustion. He forced out, his voice weak and fading, "The lion will lead us to Earth…"

"What does that mean?" D'Anna grabbed his shoulder and shook him. It didn't help him find the strength to speak again. "Sam? What does that mean?"

But he had no answer for her, as the grey mist gathered across his eyes, and he let go into the welcome dark.


	5. Chapter 5

Sharon entered _Colonial One_, and found herself the focus of nearly all eyes, as if they were expecting someone else.

"Sharon," Three nodded to her. "Did you see my sister outside?"

"No, sorry." Feeling vaguely guilty, Sharon gave her a quick, unfelt smile of greeting, and went to stand next to the only other Eight. Baltar was sitting at his desk, with Caprica standing near him. Cavil and Three stood on the opposite side, while Simon and Doral sat together on the wall seats. "What's going on?" she asked the Eight quietly.

Cavil decided to answer the question, overriding any answer the Eight would've made. "Apparently, our sister," Cavil said with an expansive gesture to Three, "has some new information to share with us."

"I do." D'Anna looked smug and hard as she turned to him, arms folded. "We found your prisoner, very much alive."

Cavil barely hesitated, glanced at Doral, and then shrugged at D'Anna. "We had two months of quiet from these two," he waved a hand across the Eights and Sixes. "I'd think you'd be grateful for silencing their whining over irrelevant prophecies."

"What?" the other Eight gasped. "You're not saying --"

"He's alive," Caprica breathed. Her gaze went to Sharon, who nodded once in confirmation.

"Who?" Baltar demanded in confusion, frowning at her. "Who are you talking about?"

Caprica glanced down at him, irritated. "Gaius, be quiet."

"Our oracle," D'Anna declared. "And he's going to take us to Earth. We don't need this place anymore."

Cavil rolled his eyes. "Oh, he knows where it is, does he? Please. He's just desperate, giving you what he thinks you want to hear. I thought better of the Threes."

But she didn't react to his scolding, remaining calm and hostile. "I know what the truth is, and it's not what you're selling."

Simon stood up, suddenly seeming quite large in the room, and turned cold eyes on Cavil. "You lied to the consensus. You _**lied**_ to us about the human. What else have you lied about, brothers?"

Sharon stepped forward, knowing she'd get no better opportunity, and said, "We should evacuate this planet and follow the path to Earth."

Baltar stared at her. "What? Leave?"

"Agreed," Caprica said, without consulting her sisters, but it didn't look as if she needed to: the Sixes were all glaring at Cavil and Doral.

"Oh, we most certainly agree," D'Anna said.

Simon hesitated, innate caution and reason warring with his anger at Cavil, but said, "Agreed."

D'Anna added, "The Twos have yet to step foot on the planet, so I feel sure they agree. It's done. The evacuation will start at once." Her lips widened in a poisonous smirk at Cavil. "_**Brother**__."_

Cavil shook his head, nothing but dismay and condescension in his face. "This is such a mistake. Don't you see you're chasing a delusion? You seriously believe a _**human**_is going to give you the path willingly?"

D'Anna lifted her brows at him and chuckled, "Who said anything about willingly? You just never asked him the right questions."

"What?" Sharon blurted, as her shock and pleasure that Sam was still alive evaporated like a bubble popping.

"What did you do?" one of the Sixes demanded.

But D'Anna had no chance to answer. Sharon heard the hollow thumps of explosions and the ship's deck rattled under her feet. She glanced out through the windows and saw plumes of smoke rising in the air.

"The insurgency!" Doral exclaimed. "You see? While you've all been discussing being 'nice', they've been planning a massive uprising. We need to strike back hard."

"Are you insane or just stupid?" Caprica retorted. "This is exactly why we need to get out of here."

The door slammed open and another Eight ran in. "Sharon!" she exclaimed and then faced everyone else. "Two battlestars just jumped into the system!"

"Adama's back," Sharon said, and she couldn't help feeling satisfied and vindicated.

"Engage them," D'Anna ordered. "We need time to evacuate."

The well-oiled machine of the Cylon went to work. Most left to start the evacuation, leaving just Sharon, D'Anna, Caprica and Baltar there on _Colonial One_.

"Your people have come for you, Gaius," D'Anna advised him coolly. "You should get out while you can."

"But--" He found no solace in Caprica's face as she took a deliberate step away from him.

"You belong with your own kind," she said, and Sharon winced inwardly at the unintentionally cruel words.

"They'll kill me!" he objected. "They'll kill me... You can't want that."

Caprica forced a smile. "Of course not, but I'm sure you'll find a way to survive. You always do." She noticed Gaeta hovering in the doorway and beckoned him inside. "I'm sure your insurgent friends would like him alive."

"My... what?" Gaeta started in surprise.

Her smile at him was more natural. "Who do you think left out documents for you to copy?"

He looked shocked, almost as shocked and betrayed as Baltar. Sharon laughed, realizing she wasn't the only one who had been clandestinely helping. D'Anna looked disgusted.

Caprica held out her hand. "Give me your weapon."

Before she said it, Sharon hadn't even realized that Gaeta was carrying a sidearm. He glanced at the Cylons, at Baltar, and swallowed hard before he put it in Caprica's hand.

She held it at her side as she moved to the door. "Come on, sisters, it's time to get to our business." She glanced a final time at Baltar, looking mournful, then turned her back and left.

Outside, they all started for the landing platform where Sharon hoped a Heavy Raider was waiting. They had to dart for cover into the alley on the other side of the detention center as a horde of armed humans streamed for the gates.

As they waited, shielded from casual view by a protruding beam, Caprica asked D'Anna, "How is Sam?"

D'Anna's lip curled in disgust. "Apparently quite rank, from the report. She had to push hard with the neural amplifier to get him to tell her the way. But she has faith the vision is a true one. Unfortunately, he passed out before she could get more details. We'll probably have to force him again, since he was resistant."

Sharon listened to this, aghast. She had _**tortured**_him? She appeared to believe he was an oracle, and yet she was willing to do this?

"I see," Caprica said quite calmly, and squeezed Sharon's arm when Sharon drew an outraged breath.

A strange, distant boom, high up, drew their attention, and Sharon looked up to see a huge fireball in the sky, white and red with heat as it came down through the atmosphere. Her hands tightened to fists of victory, as she saw it was _Galactica_, coming in hot and launching Vipers.

Then, while D'Anna was still staring at _Galactica_, Caprica lifted the gun and shot her in the back of the head.

The Three dropped to the ground, and Sharon stared, blinking in stunned and startled confusion. "Caprica? What--?"

"Funny, it's even easier the second time," she remarked to the body then squared her shoulders and faced Sharon. "There'll be chaos in the resurrection ship. That gives us a chance."

"A chance to do what?"

"Get Sam the hell out of her custody and into friendlier hands. Are you with me?"

Sharon grinned. "Hell, yeah. Let's go. Try not to get killed."

They started running for the landing area.

* * *

Kara stared out toward the front of the launch tube, hands relaxed on her controls. "Blue Squadron, ready to launch," she reported to CIC.

"_Stand by_," Helo responded over the wireless.

Next came the Admiral's voice, "_This is the Admiral. All hands brace for turbulence."_

Turbulence? Kara snorted to herself.

The jump itself passed in its usual swiftly nauseating wave, and immediately Kara rocked in her seat. She was strapped in, so to feel it at all meant the deck was pitching.

Helo called, "_Launch! Launch them all!"_

"Acknowledged, _Galactica_. Blue squadron, launch!" Kara kicked in the afterburners. With the launch assist from the ship, her Viper accelerated down the tube and into the atmosphere.

Wind shear and the shock wave of _Galactica's_ jump seized her bird, trying to toss her around, and she held on, doggedly powering through. Damn, it was loud though - she forgot how frakking noisy atmosphere was.

"Clear Galactica!" she repeated the orders loudly. "And dive."

She cleared the clouds abruptly and pulled up, heading for the tallest building, which had to be the detention center Tigh had mentioned in the sitrep. There were smoke clouds and people running every which way, some pinned down by shiny Centurions and gun placement towers.

Duck was flying her wing and he said, "_Starbuck, Duck. I'm on the tower_."

"Roger. I've got the gate."

She blew the gate and most of the wall with it, rolling through the explosion, and Duck's missile hit his target square. She went looking for more toasters to blow.

Now _this_ was flying.

She took out another squadron of bulletheads, like shooting fish in a barrel, and what looked like a landing area where Heavy Raiders were on the ground. She and Duck took two on the ground, but more escaped, heading up into the atmosphere.

"Hotdog, you have Blue Squadron, escort the ships. Duck, follow me, we're going turkey hunting." She gave the order as she pulled her Viper into a climb, gritting her teeth as the ship pushed away from the planet and into space after the Heavy Raiders.

Duck paced her easily, and then with no words necessary, they peeled off, Kara to the right side and Duck to the left. She stared at it, flying grimly to put it in her sights as it maneuvered to keep clear. But then Cylon predictability kicked in and she anticipated its next motion, letting out a stream of ammo that tore into it until it exploded.

Maybe it was the same one.

_'That's one for you, baby,'_ she murmured silently to Sam, and banked to engage another Heavy Raider lining up on Ninja and the ship he was trying to guard.

_'That's two_.'

There was another Heavy Raider, speeding toward one of the baseships. It refused to engage the Colonials, hurrying as if it was carrying something too important to risk loss in battle. Anything the Cylons wanted to preserve had to be a good idea to blow up.

Kara pursued, not caring that the baseships were exchanging fire with _Galactica_, only interested in catching this oddly behaving craft.

* * *

"Oh frak, Viper, frak," Sharon muttered, taking the manual controls to fly evasive maneuvers when the Heavy Raider wanted to turn and engage. Her hand hovered over the toggle for the wireless to claim friendliness, but then she had a better idea. The baseship where Sam was being held was in combat with G_alactica_; and it wasn't going to last long. She had to get to him, and she didn't have time for combat or long explanations.

She set the hyperdrive for a short jump and left behind the dogged Viper pursuit. The baseship suddenly loomed above them, inadequate Raider squadrons trying to act like point defense batteries, as the _Galactica_ hurled missiles and rounds at it.

"Frak, why the hell aren't they pulling back?" Sharon demanded. "If _Galactica _kills the ship, he's not going to resurrect."

"Nobody knows Sam's there, except the ones who don't care. I've sent the recognition code," Caprica reported from the copilot seat. "We're cleared for approach."

Now if only someone would tell _Galactica_ that, Sharon thought, dodging tracer rounds and Raider shrapnel. She curved the ship around to the rear where the bulk of the basestar would shield them from the _Galactica's_ guns and plunged at speed into the docking bay, narrowly avoiding a squadron of Heavy Raiders launching.

"Frak!" Her hands still shaking from the close call, she jerked the stick back and landed on the platform with a jolt. Caprica was already free of her harness and punching the ramp open. She was carrying the pistol, and Sharon swiped another one from the storage compartment inside the pilot's seat on her way out.

Here, unlike New Caprica, there was haste, but no confusion, no chaos, as the other models moved around supervising Centurions or the weapons systems. No one gave them a second look.

At the nearest datafont, Caprica plunged her hand in and her gaze blanked as she accessed the information.

"Did she leave it open?" Sharon asked, as Caprica pulled her hand out. Because if D'Anna had locked the location to the Threes, they were going to have to find one.

"Luckily, yes. This way." Caprica led through the corridors and Sharon followed. They had to take a detour once, when the route was blocked by damage, and often had to steady themselves on the wall as the ship rocked.

But Caprica knew the way, likely following a ribbon or some kind of path in her projection to take her to the right room.

It wasn't too long before they hurried through an open doorway and into a room with two Centurions and one prisoner in the holding chair. There were no Threes there, but Sharon glanced at the Centurions warily.

Caprica ran up to him. "It's him," she said and pushed the button to retract all the restraints. He didn't react, hands limp on the arms of the chair and head lolling to one side.

Sharon bit her lip, reminding herself that this was better than the burned-up corpse she had last seen. But the shaggy hair, matted beard, and shredded, filthy clothes indicated a thorough neglect that was almost harder to see. His eyes were closed, and he seemed too still. Seized by a sudden panic that they were too late, she grabbed his wrist to check his pulse.

His heart was still beating steady and strong, and she let out a soft breath of relief. "Sam?" she called to him softly. "Can you wake up? We've got to get you out of here."

His eyelids fluttered but didn't open. Even when Caprica lightly slapped his cheek, he only stirred for a moment and then sank back into unconsciousness.

"How are we gonna get him out of here?" Sharon asked Caprica. "He can't walk."

Caprica went up to the Centurions and gave them an order, and in five seconds, they had torn out a wall panel, bent the corners into handles, and presented the stretcher to Caprica.

"Nice," Sharon said, with a wry smile. It still seemed slightly surreal to her when Centurions did things besides stand guard and shoot things.

Then the two women eased Sam down onto the stretcher and let the Centurions carry him as they led the way with guns in hand. They didn't have to discuss it, to know they weren't letting anyone stop them.

In the press of battle, the only ones to notice and approach were a pair of Eights. "Anders? He's alive?" one asked, shocked.

"Yes, the Ones and Fives lied to us," Caprica said.

"We're evacuating Sam before this one goes up," Sharon explained.

The Eights joined the group, watching the rear, and got to the docking bay where the Heavy Raider was still waiting, as it had been told. No one tried to stop them, which Sharon thought odd, but perhaps in the battle everyone else had something else to do.

"Put the truth in the datastream," Sharon told the others. "So everyone knows they lied to the consensus."

Both nodded.

"God be with you, sisters," Sharon said and ran up the ramp to get the engines ready.

The Centurions left the stretcher in the back area of the Heavy Raider, and at a command, went out, so Caprica could close the ramp. "We're in. Go."

"We're going." Sharon lifted the ship, took a deep breath, and accelerated out as fast as she could.

Out in space, she saw that _Pegasus_ had arrived and was engaging three more basestars, including their destination. _Pegasus_ was fighting but not trying to escape, and Sharon only had to look at the dradis to see it was sacrificing itself for the ships coming up from the surface.

But Sharon wanted to bring Sam back to his old baseship with the Six who cared for him and the Two who tended his faith so carefully, and that was not going to happen if _Pegasus_ blew it up.

She contacted it on the wireless. "Pull back," Sharon ordered. "I have him."

"_What_?" she heard a Six exclaim.

"This is Sharon Valerii. I have Anders, he's alive," she explained hurriedly. "But if you don't pull back, _Pegasus _is going to take you out and us too, and he's not going to come back from that."

"_Anders?_" the Six repeated in dumbfounded shock, and there was a pause before she, or another Six, said more crisply, "_Understood. We are withdrawing_._ Come home, Sharon._"

Leaving its two sister baseships to the _Pegasus'_ not so tender mercies, one of them began to push back from the battle.

Keeping an eye out for stray Colonial fighters and debris, she set a course for that baseship. "How's he doing?" she called back over her shoulder to Caprica.

"The same," she answered. "I don't know - he's unconscious, Sharon. And he smells awful."

Which was true, but seemed a rather inconsequential thing to mention when he was very ill, and possibly dying. "At least we can wash him and fix that part."

Halfway there, the baseship they had just left exploded in a cloud of shimmering gas and dust. But neither _Galactica _nor_ Pegasus _lookedin much better shape, and she found herself holding her breath while watching the battle. But the Colonial ships continued to rise up from the surface and blink out of sight.

Her Heavy Raider picked up a squadron of Raiders as an escort, and she tried to signal them away, but they didn't go, remaining stubbornly fixed in formation. The Raiders followed them to the baseship, and three continued into the docking bay entrance. One followed them in all the way, settling on the opposite platform with its sensor focused on the Heavy Raider like a dog watching the door for its master to come home.

She glanced at it warily. It had to be the same Raider who had rescued him months ago, though she wondered how it knew Sam was even aboard. Then she realized it must have heard her say his name on the wireless and decided to abandon the mission to come protect him. She dampened her suddenly dry lips at the evidence of independent decision-making.

But that was for later, when she had time to think about it. "We're aboard, jump now," Sharon sent on the wireless. Moments later she felt the brief disorientation of the jump, just before she landed the Heavy Raider on the platform.

Through the screen she could see another pale-haired Six like Caprica emerge from the hatchway, clasping her hands together before her. A Two and another Eight joined her.

Sharon went in the back where Caprica was kneeling beside Sam. "He won't wake up," Caprica said, lifting a worried face to Sharon briefly.

"Would you?" Sharon returned.

Caprica considered that a moment, her gaze encompassing the shredded remnants of his tank top, and the marked skin beneath. "No, I wouldn't," she murmured and her hand stroked back his hair and down the side of his face, smoothing his beard. "But hopefully he can hear us and knows he's among friends now."

She moved to one end and together they lifted the stretcher and went out.

"Sam!" the other Six exclaimed, her heart shining in her eyes as she rushed to his side, when Sharon and Caprica set it down. "Oh my God, oh God, Sam, are you all right?" she asked grabbing his hand, and then looked up at Sharon when he didn't even stir. "What the frak did they do to him?"

Leoben murmured, moving closer on the other side. "I don't see any current injuries. What's wrong with him?" he asked the two women.

Sharon shook her head. "You mean, besides the fact that the others kept him in a filthy hole for a few months and hurt him whenever they felt like it?" she asked in a tight voice, thinking back to how the Ones had lied to them. "Three used a neural amplifier on him this morning."

The Cylons all shared a glance of dismay. They all knew as Sharon did - perhaps better - what the amplifier was for, and what it could do to a human.

"All to force him to have a vision of Earth before God granted him one," Six murmured shaking her head sadly. "No wonder he's gone away from us."

But then Leoben let out a huff of breath and said, "Even assuming she used a high setting, he'll recover. All he needs is time and care." He glanced at the Six clutching Sam's hand.

She nodded and she stroked Sam's face exactly as Caprica had. "We need to get him clean," she said. "That will show him he's free better than words. I think if two of us hold him upright, the shower would be quicker --"

"No, not a good idea. They held him in one of the shower rooms," Caprica interrupted, warning her.

Six bit her lip. "One of the … " she started in confusion and then understood. "Oh." She raised his hand to her cheek, while she blinked back tears and had to clear her throat to speak. "All right. There's a bath on the same hall as his room, maybe that would be --"

She stopped speaking when his eyes opened. Everyone froze, looking at him. He blinked a few times, staring up blankly at the ceiling.

"Sam?" the Six leaned over him. "Sam?" she repeated more softly when he didn't respond. "You're safe. You're home," she murmured. "You're with us, now. Can you hear me? Sam?"

He blinked again, but the next time, his eyes shut and didn't open again. Sharon didn't think he'd seen anything at all.

Six pressed her lips together and her shoulders slumped, making her look fragile. Caprica touched her back, gently stroking her in comfort. "He'll be well, sister," she murmured. "With your love, how could he not be?"

Six swallowed hard and nodded. "Let's take him in, his skin's cold."

Sharon lifted her end of the stretcher again, and Leoben took the other, and they headed for the airlock.

A loud scream startled her and she nearly dropped the stretcher. She grabbed for it, barely righting it before Sam tumbled off to the floor, and turned awkwardly to see what had made that horrible screech.

The Raider was hovering above the platform, weapons fully engaged and pointed at them, and its sensor swept back and forth swiftly in agitation.

"I don't think it wants us to take him away," Leoben observed, dryly.

Caprica frowned at it. "Is that the same Raider? The one that rescued him?"

Sam's Six nodded. "I think so. It's hard to tell. But it did the same thing before. Except then it was targeting Centurions - now it's targeting us. It's trying to protect him."

"From us? But we rescued him! We're trying to help him," Caprica protested, addressing the Raider in a loud voice. The Raider didn't react to her words. Sharon thought it probably didn't understand anything beyond Sam was hurt, and reasoning with it was futile. It was a ton of killing machine that thought it was a guard dog.

"I suggest we let Sam stay here until he wakes up," Leoben said, agreeing with her.

"But he needs a bath and a change of clothes," Caprica said. "A Raider's not supposed to be able to fire on us…" But her voice trailed off in doubt as the Raider continued to hover. It screeched again, sounding impatient to Sharon.

"I don't think we should try. Leoben's right, let's not tempt the Raider to do anything rash. We can do everything here," Six said with a glance at the agitated Raider. "It's nice and open, which Sam might like after being trapped in a shower room all this time. And maybe he'll feel safer knowing his… friend is watching over him."

They set Sam down again, in the wide space between the landing platform and the door. The Raider settled on the platform, out of the way but uncomfortably close. Its sensors still swept back and forth restlessly. Sharon thought with a bit of wry amusement, that if it was a cat, it would be lashing its tail.

Some gawking Sixes and Eights brought buckets of water and towels to sponge Sam down. But generally they stayed back to watch, leaving his friends to do the main task. Leoben fetched a razor and scissors and was the only one who dared cut his hair and shave off the growth of beard, under the watchful eye of the Raider.

Had anyone told her four months ago that she'd see Sam naked, Sharon would've been very pleased to hear that. But she found the reality more upsetting than anything else. He was too thin, and his skin was marred with badly healed recent injuries. His face, without the beard, was gaunt, printed with lines of pain and stress at the corners of his eyes and mouth that hadn't been there before. As they washed and re-clothed him, he stirred, enough to let out little sounds of distress and twitch randomly as his nerves reacted to the damage of the amplifier, but still he didn't wake.

Seeing him brought to such a state made her want to throw things. It was worse for Sam's Six, though. When she was putting his shirt on him, she got a view of his back and the new scars. She trailed her hand across them lightly, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Why did they do this?" she demanded softly. She pulled down the shirt and tilted him on his back again with the gentle touch of a mother for a child. "This had no purpose. Why hurt him?"

The darker haired Six had joined them, bringing the new set of clothes. She had watched the ministrations for a long time in silence, but Sharon saw the tight jaw and the narrow eyes and knew she was angry. An angry Six was not someone to be trifled with.

"Because pain and fear are the only feelings they understand," she answered and folded her arms. "Sam frightens them because they have no faith. So then they hurt him and lied to us. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired of the Ones leading us into destruction and killing and pain."

"What - what are you saying, sister?" Caprica asked warily.

"I'm tired of his 'we're only machines' philosophy, when we're more than that." She glanced at the Raider. "The _**Raiders**_ are more than that, and I bet the Centurions would be, too, if we let them. But we know we're more. We're ourselves. We're people."

"But Six, what --?" Sharon started.

"No," she interrupted and lifted her chin, looking defiant. "Not 'Six'. I had a name when I was on Virgon. I want it back. Natalie. My name is Natalie." She looked proud and fierce as she said the name.

Sharon remembered back to the discussion with Leoben in the cold Hybrid's chamber and shivered. Her eyes met his, and he nodded very slightly in shared remembrance. The words echoed in her memory: "_Seven shall become two…"_

She glanced down at Sam again and she wondered: How much of what was happening had been inevitable from the beginning, and how much was him? How much had he influenced them? Maybe the other four had, in their own way, been right - maybe Sam _**was**_ a threat to the Cylon collective.

Apprehension tightened in her gut, and she knew the Cylons were approaching some great, inevitable chasm. The part of her that was an Eight quailed at that, wanted desperately for everyone to get along - but the part that still remembered being human, swallowed back her fear. Maybe some threats were necessary.

She was the first to repeat the name. "All right. Natalie it is."

She half expected the Six next to Sam's cot to take a name then too, but she was spreading blankets on him and didn't say anything.

Sharon knelt on the floor beside Sam's cot, opposite the Six, and pulled out the dog tags that had been burning a quiet hole in her pocket. The tags looked right on him, glimmering on the black t-shirt, and she was glad she had kept them to give back to him.

Sam had fallen back into seemingly peaceful sleep after all their manhandling, but now he stirred again, moaning softly and moving his head as though trapped in a bad dream.

"Shhh, you're safe," Six murmured, fingers going to caress through his hair until he settled again. "We won't let them hurt you, not ever again."

"No, we won't," Natalie agreed, in a much harder voice.

Sharon nodded and she saw Leoben and Caprica nod in solemn promise as well. With a start, she realized there were five Cylons tending Sam. Natalie had been the first step forward to claim her own individuality, and now because of her, five Cylons were now in sworn opposition to their brethren.

"_The seven shall become two when one steps forth from the five."_

With a cold sense of loss and dread, she wondered if the five of them just ensured that the rest of the Hybrid's prophecy would come to pass.

* * *

As she watched the explosions rip apart the _Pegasus_, Kara tensed, anxiety curdling in her stomach. _'You better have got off first, you frakker. I'll never forgive you if you're still on that ship, Lee.'_

But the Cylons were defeated as well, with most baseships destroyed or nearly so, except for one which had jumped out.

"_All Vipers, Galactica. Return to the barn. Combat landings authorized," _Helo ordered over the wireless and he added, "_Port side pod only. Conditions are crowded and civilian. Watch the ball carefully."_

_"_Acknowledged, _Galactica_," Kara responded and wondered just how crowded it could be.

The answer, as her Viper came up the lift to the docking bay, was very crowded. The whole deck was jammed full - Raptors and Vipers and even two small civilian shuttles. All of them surrounded by dazed looking civilians, pilots, frustrated deck crew, and a handful of marines and blue-uniformed officers trying to make some organization out of the crowd.

Kara watched the beehive through her canopy. She saw a Raptor open and Colonel Tigh walk out - wearing civilian attire, bearded, with a patch on one eye. Ellen wasn't with him. Chief Tyrol followed, and when the deck crew cheered for him, he blinked dazedly.

Kara waited, but Cally didn't emerge behind him, and Kara didn't see the baby either. Kara started to feel ill. How many had they lost?

She saw Barolay down there, a bright figure in her red hair and shiny flight suit, looking anxiously through the crowd. She found Hilliard and grabbed him. Kara didn't need to see their faces or hear their words to know Gripkey hadn't made it either when they clung together in a tight hug. The two of them were now the last C-Bucs to survive.

Numb, she opened the latch on her canopy, opened it, and removed her helmet. Very carefully, she climbed down to the floor and stood there, exhausted and not willing to move anywhere.

"Excuse me," a woman's voice said. "Lieutenant? Or, sorry, captain, isn't it?"

Kara blinked to find someone in front of her. The civilian woman was carrying two little girls in her arms, one a bit smaller or younger, and she looked at least as exhausted as Kara felt. Trying not to snap at the woman, she asked, "Yes?"

"My name is Julia Brynn," she introduced. "I don't know who I should tell about this. This girl," she nodded to the dark-haired toddler she was holding, "I found her on the planet. The woman with her, her mother I think, was dead. I don't know her name or whether she has any other family who made it off. "

Kara forced a smile at the cute girl with the mop of curls and big, staring eyes. "Well, I admit I don't exactly know what we're doing about that since I just got here. But let's start by getting you away from the crowd, and find someone who knows what's going on, okay? I'm sure Captain Kelly or the XO are around. They're probably making a list. They're good at that sort of boring stuff," she told the girls, wrinkling her nose in exaggerated disgust. Neither of them reacted, but Julia at least smiled a bit. "Can I hold you?" she asked the dark-haired one. "You're both big girls and poor Julia here looks about to drop." The girl was too shell shocked to react, and Kara slid her hands around the tiny body and tugged her away.

The girl put her head down on Kara's shoulder and Kara smoothed her dark hair. "Let's go see what we can do to help you," she murmured. "Hopefully someone's missing you, sweetheart."

Hearing a chant for Adama behind her, Kara hesitated, wanting to take part, but it seemed like this was more important. She ushered Julia off the deck and into the crowded corridors beyond. Despite the desperate circumstances, it felt good.

The old ship was alive again.

* * *

He woke slowly, pulling himself out of the unsettling, clinging dreams. Even before he opened his eyes, he became aware of a soft, soothing croon, like a wordless lullaby that helped him out of the dark place where he'd been buried so long.

Someone was gently wiping his face with a wet cloth, too, and he didn't try to open his eyes until it moved. His eyes were stuck with grit and he raised a hand to rub it away. His arm and shoulder ached with the movement.

"Sam?" a voice asked, and he turned his head to find one of the Sixes.

She smiled when she saw she had his attention. "Welcome home, Sam."

It was only then he realized she was Thea. "Hey," he croaked out and had to clear his throat.

He looked up and around, realizing that despite the fact that he was lying on some sort of cot, the ceiling was high above his head. He was in the docking bay.

"What --?" he started, feeling tired and confused. The last thing he recalled was D'Anna and weirdly, a lion. "What happened?"

"D'Anna changed her mind," Thea explained. "We've evacuated New Caprica. Sharon brought you here from the other baseship to recover, and we're not letting them take you again, no matter what," she reassured him, hand on his cheek.

Then surprisingly, her smile widened. "We're not the only ones." She pointed her chin to the left. "Your friend objected when we tried to remove you. We decided it was best to keep you here until you woke up. It seems very…. concerned." Her voice was affectionate, but also puzzled.

The Raider's red sensor light was pinned on him. Its worry seemed to flow across the intervening air and wrap Sam up in softness - and the wordless lullaby sang in his head again.

_'I'm okay, I'm okay_,' Sam sent back as best he could. '_I'm safe now.'_

The Raider hesitated, uncertain. There was a bright thread of anger that the lesser Cylons had done this to him.

_'Not these. As for the others, not now. Wait. I'll call you when it's time,' _ Sam ordered.

The Raider understood and subsided, but it didn't move, a strangely comforting presence not far away.

Thea was looking at him with her eyes wide and mouth parted a little in shock. "Are you … talking to it?" she asked, sounding awed.

Since they seemed to be alone, he nodded once. "In a way. Something happened out there, when we were in space. I can't explain. Some kind of … joining. So I can feel what it's feeling, and I think it feels me, too."

She glanced over her shoulder at the Raider and back at Sam, still stunned. "That shouldn't be possible."

"Maybe they've been evolving, too," he suggested, "and you never noticed."

She seemed troubled by that for a moment, before she lifted her gaze to his and changed the subject. "And how do you feel?"

He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment, trying to figure out how he felt. He didn't want to move and awaken all the aches that lurked beneath the hazy lassitude in his muscles, but altogether, he felt not too bad. The best part was that he felt _clean_ \- while he'd been out, someone had washed him and when he ventured a hand up to his chin, he discovered some good fairy had given him a shave too. He ventured a smile at Thea and was about to say he felt human again, but checked himself. "You didn't have to scrub all the dirt off, but I really appreciate it."

"It wasn't only me," she demurred. "You look thin. We need to find you something to eat."

"Anything but that white mash cereal stuff," he told her. "I don't want to see that shit ever again." He meant it to be half-joking, but he glanced away, feeling his heart sort of flutter at the reminder. Swallowing hard, he sat up, immediately regretting it as his head started to pound and his bones started to ache with the movement. "Oh, frak."

Her arm went around his shoulders and caught him. "It'll pass," she whispered. "Just give yourself time. It fraks with your nervous system."

He held out a shaking hand. "No kidding."

As she held him against her, warm and alive and _**real**_, she murmured, "I'm sorry. We would've come for you, but we thought you were dead. They lied to us. To me."

"I know," he said, shutting his eyes and trying to shut out the memories. "I don't blame you."

When he opened his eyes, there was a large tawny lion sitting by the doorway.

It was gone when he looked again.

* * *

He ate his dinner of crackers and soup and the best damn apple he'd ever eaten, kept company by the Sixes, Eights and Twos who kept 'dropping by' to visit. Luckily someone had been smart and kept all the other models away, because he knew he wasn't ready to see them. So he talked with his friends, since he knew he had to thank them and reassure them that he was well. At last Thea put her foot down and brought him back to his old room. He ached, especially in his ankle, but at least the numbness and tremors in his hands had faded, so he felt more like himself.

His room felt comfortingly familiar, even with the garish lights and big bed with its surreal satin sheets. But one thing was strange and new. It was there, and then not.

He stopped so abruptly Thea's arm hit him. "Sam?" she asked.

He blinked as though that would bring it back, but there was nothing there. "I saw … I thought I saw a lion. On the floor at the foot of the bed."

She did him the favor of looking. "There's no lion there."

"I know, but it was there. It looked so real…" he trailed off, picturing it again - a big, golden lion with a massive mane, sitting on the floor, looking at him with yellow eyes. It had looked as real as the bed, down to the reddish highlights on its fur from the wall lights.

He sat heavily on the bed and looked at where the lion hadn't been. He was going crazy - there was no other explanation. Three had broken his brain and now he was seeing things that weren't there.

"When I was… with the others," he explained to her. Sensing distress, she knelt on the bed next to him and put a hand on his upper arm. But he didn't look at her. "She put my hand in this neural thing, and frak it hurt. She wanted a vision. I kept telling her, it doesn't work like that. I get feelings, not pictures. There was that one time with chamalla, and it nearly killed me. But she wouldn't stop. She just wouldn't stop."

He pressed his hands against his forehead, closing his eyes against the ache inside his skull.

Thea pressed her body against his arm and shoulder, cuddling close, while her hand made soothing motions up and down his back.

He inhaled her clean scent like rain and could continue. "And then, I saw the lion. It'll lead us to Earth. I know that, but I have no frakking idea what it _**means**_ \-- something to do with Leonis maybe, but I don't know. She wanted more, but that's all I saw. And now I'm seeing the same lion everywhere." He let out a soft unsteady laugh and swallowed. "I'm afraid the Sam you got back… is sort of … damaged. Not really worth all the trouble."

"Hush," she murmured and her other hand cradled his cheek, turning his face toward her. "It's all right, Sam," she comforted, "just let it go. You're safe now. You're home. Let me help you ..."

She leaned forward and her lips touched his. She kissed him gently, drawing out his pain and anxiety until he kissed back. Her touch was soft, through his hair and across his shoulders and back, curling around to slip beneath his shirt. She undressed him with shy smiles and kisses, and everywhere she touched the deep aches disappeared and his skin came alive again.

With a groan of surrender, he clasped her in his hands and drew her against him. She was slender, but strong and beautiful. Her skin was like cream silk, sliding against his. She leaned back, pulling him down on her, and arched her back with a sharp breath and soft exhortation to God, when his lips and tongue tasted her breasts. When she opened to him with welcoming arms, he sank inside her, letting the love in her eyes wash him clean.

Her fingers were tight on his shoulders and her long legs wrapped him all around, and urged him deep. He kept his pace slow and steady, and she went first, shuddering as her pale skin flushed rose.

"Sam!" she cried. "Samuel!"

Her head went back, and he kissed the lines of her throat, pushing forward, seeking fulfillment.

His release broke through him, pleasure as the absence of pain, which was a gift after the last endless weeks of nothing else. Sinking down to the bed, cradled between her thighs, he felt her contentment as well, deepening his own sense of peace. Breathing slowing, he murmured her name, with his head pillowed on her breasts. "Thea…"

The caressing hand in his hair stilled. "Thea?" she repeated.

"It's what I've been calling you in my head," he explained and raised his head, suddenly worried. "After someone I used to know. I'm sorry, if you'd rather --"

"No," her finger slipped across his lips and she smiled tearfully. "You gave me a name. So few of us have names…"

"I could name everyone who wants one," he offered, and nuzzled her skin between her breasts.

"I bet the Eights all want to be Sharons," she answered, with a laugh in her voice.

He chuckled. "Sort of misses the point of a name, doesn't it?" But he'd seen enough ... before ... to know that she was probably right.

Her fingers toyed with his hair, pushing the damp strands back from his face in a gesture both soothing and familiar. "You always know it's me, don't you?" she asked, after a moment, sounding curious.

"I know when it's you and when it's not. So no," he planted little kisses up her chest and the hollow of her throat, moving to her chin and lips, and then lifting to smile down into her eyes, "trying to play tricks with your twins won't work on me."

When he said 'twins', he remembered the pair of Threes standing above him, alike as mirror reflections, and his stomach seized up, choking away his humor.

Thea noticed his expression and coaxed him down for another kiss. He buried himself in her again, desperate to shut the door on the memories and forget. But even so, an insidious voice at the back of his mind whispered this was another of those intense daydreams and he was still on the floor of his cell.

Later, he clutched Thea's warmth to him and stared at the shadowed reaches of the ceiling, trying to convince himself it was real and he was free, until exhaustion finally pulled him into sleep.

* * *

_The lion padded before him, leading him through the forest. The trees were tall, with narrow trunks and pale green leaves, letting beams of sunlight in to slant down to the dirt path at his feet._

_He followed the lion up a slope, and the path turned rough and rocky. The forest dwindled to a few scattered trees and then none, as the land became more desert-like, with bare sand and low spiky plants. But always the lion was before him, waiting until he caught up and then moving on, leading him always upward._

_The path turned around a large boulder and into a narrow, sandy defile, heading for a cleft in the rock of the cliff-face. The lion padded into the narrow opening and disappeared. _

_He followed, ducking his head beneath the overhang, and went into the dark. The weight of the stone pressed on him as he squeezed through, and then the passageway opened up._

_The entirety of the mountain was hollow, carved by human hands into a vast round cavern with one immense central pillar and a domed roof so high it was like being at the bottom of a well. Holes all around the edge of the dome let in diffuse light, enough to see that this place had to be ancient, but was perfectly well preserved._

_The lion was gone, but he moved forward, stunned. He'd seen this place before, in the chamalla vision, but it was empty this time. It was a temple; it felt like a temple, despite the lack of any obvious altar. But where was it? Was this on Earth? And why was it important?_

_His footsteps echoed on the stone as he rounded the central pillar to look at the far side. There was a carving of concentric circles, painted in bright colors. It drew his eyes and his hand, and he reached out to put his palm in the center._

_Another hand was there first, sliding underneath his, and he turned his head to see Kara._

_It had been so long… he couldn't speak, only look at her and drink in her presence. _

_She smiled at him, eyes bright but serious. "The temple is yours, but this is not," she told him._

_He turned over his hand to grasp hers and tug her into him. "I've missed you," he whispered into her hair, hugging her tight. "Oh, Gods, so much…"_

_Her arms twined around his neck and she raised her face to meet his eyes. There was a sorrowful wisdom to her gaze, and none of the playfulness he remembered. "We have separate paths, for now." _

_"Tell me we'll come together again," he pleaded with her. "Tell me I don't have to lose you for this?"_

_Instead of answering, she kissed him. Hungrily his lips sought all she offered, his hands cupping her waist and sliding over the familiar curves._

* * *

Kara awoke with a gasp, discovering her hand was down her pants and she was sweating and panting with reaction.

Gods. She wanted to go back to sleep, make the dream last forever, even when she also prayed the dreams would stop.

The blank grey frame of the rack above met her eyes, but she didn't see it. The images were burned into her mind, because she'd had them practically every time she closed her eyes after they'd rescued New Caprica.

_Sam… holding her against a round pillar in an empty temple… her legs around him as he frakked her… his mouth on hers hard and desperate as he pushed them both to climax as if they had no time… her voice crying his name as her senses fractured in the heat… but when she opened her eyes, he was gone, and she was standing in front of the mandala alone…_

She licked her lips, tasting the salt of sweat and tears. Her hand closed around the pair of dog tags, remembering when he'd gotten his own set and immediately offered her one. It had felt like putting a ring on her finger when she'd threaded his tag on her chain. They'd known there was no such thing as forever, but she'd expected a little more time. She'd believed his promise of the future. What a fool.

"Starbuck?" Hotdog's voice came from his rack. "You okay?"

She dropped the tags and sat up. "Fine." Without looking at him, she slipped into her BDUs and went to work out her overactive imagination.

Helo found her in the gym later, and offered to spot her on the weight machine.

She let the burn in her muscles fill her and distract her, but Helo wasn't fooled; when she was done and sipping at the water, he sat on the bench next to her. "What's going on?"

"What? Nothing," she answered, but her hand clasped the dog tags for a moment before letting them fall back on her chest.

Helo caught the gesture, and prodded, "What?"

She stared at the treadmill, and in a low voice, she answered, "I keep having these dreams. Really intense dreams. I find him again and we frak like bunnies." Her laugh was strained. "You don't have to tell me how stupid it is. He's dead, I know that. But ever since we left New Caprica, I don't know ..." Her voice trailed off and her hands curled around the edge of the bench, holding back the words that would imply she wanted to believe he was still out there.

Helo frowned thoughtfully, before taking a deep breath. "He might not be."

She pushed the offer of hope away immediately, unable to bear it. "His bird blew up, Karl. Even if he managed to punch out, the Fleet jumped right after. We were at the end of CAP, so he had air left for twelve hours, max. He's dead. Long since dead."

She knew the facts and laid them out, unflinching. She'd tried convincing herself with them before.

But Helo wasn't done. "When Sharon was on New Caprica, she ran into one of the D'Annas, who told her Sam's on their baseship."

It took a moment for the meaning to sink in, that for Sam to be anywhere he couldn't be dead. Then she sat up straight and stared at Helo. "That's impossible. No. She must have been frakking with Sharon."

Helo shook his head a little. "Boomer was there, too. She confirmed the Cylons had taken him prisoner. She saw him alive, after the battle."

She couldn't grasp it. Sam was alive. After all these months, trying to convince herself that her tenuous hope was false and ridiculous, he was alive. And Helo had known about it for _**days.**_

"What? You're only telling me this _**now**_?" she demanded angrily, shoving at him and jumping to her feet, fists against her thighs ready to hit him if he said the wrong thing.

He took a deep breath. "Boomer also said, as far as she knew, Sam had been killed while trying to escape, but she didn't know for sure. She hadn't seen him in months. But D'Anna claimed he was still alive."

Kara read something else in his face, and knew he was holding something back. "What else? Tell me."

He hesitated and then admitted, "D'Anna also said he was telling the Cylons how to find Earth."

She snorted in disbelief. "Sam would never...."

"Not willingly, no," Karl agreed, and she felt a chill. The Cylons had taken Tigh's eye; what might they have done to the man who had led the resistance against them on Caprica? Unwillingly her mind strayed to what she'd done to Leoben-- four months of that? Lords of Kobol, she hoped he was dead.

She rubbed at her arms vigorously and walked away from the bench and Helo with his bad news.

What if it was true? What if these dreams were him crying out for her?

"Sharon and I didn't want to tell you, because there's nothing you can do," Helo said behind her. "We don't even know if any of it's true."

"It's true," she said in a voice like sand. "One of the turkeys refused to engage me and then a basestar jumped away from _Pegasus_. Didn't make sense to me then - but it does if they had a human on board who couldn't resurrect."

He had been right there. So close to her. If only she had known...

"We don't know if it's true," he repeated gently, but firmly, with a large hand on her shoulder. "_**If**_ it is, we don't know where they are now. So there's no way we can rescue him."

Each word was like a nail driving into her flesh. Yanking free of him, she fixed her gaze on the punching bag, willing back the sudden wet heat in her eyes.

Nothing she could do. Gods, she hated those words.

She hit the bag with her bare fist. Then again, and again, trying to beat out her own helplessness.

It was her turn to rescue him and she had no idea how to even start.

*

The End.

* * *

To be continued in _Not All That We Are: The Thread of Ariadne_

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your comments.


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